Jews around the world traditionally usher in Rosh Hashana by dipping apples in honey in the hope of sweet times ahead. But Israelis’ celebrations were muted on Wednesday evening amid the nation’s escalating conflicts.
A day after a wave of missiles from Iran forced people into bomb shelters and safe rooms, and just hours before the holiday began at sunset, Israelis learned that eight soldiers had been killed in fighting with Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
“We just want a normal year,” said Sigalit Orr, a tech consultant who lives in Hod Hasharon, a densely populated Tel Aviv suburb where more than 100 homes were damaged by Iran’s missile attack on Tuesday.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued a short, grim video message just before the holiday began, expressing his condolences to the families of the fallen Israeli soldiers, but also warning that the conflict was far from over. “We are in the middle of a tough war against Iran’s axis of evil, which seeks to destroy us,” he said. “This will not happen.”
On Tuesday night, Iran launched about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel in what it said was retaliation for assassinations of top leaders of its proxy groups, including those of Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran in July, widely attributed to Israel, and of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an airstrike near Beirut on Friday.
Addressing the nation, Mr. Netanyahu vowed that Israel would return about 70 living hostages still being held in Gaza nearly a year after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack that sparked a devastating war in the enclave. He also promised to return the more than 60,000 residents of northern Israel displaced from their homes after Hezbollah, in solidarity with Hamas, began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, sparking what has become another war.
