Ariane Menage (correspondent in Israel)//Photo credits: MAJA HITIJ / GETTY IMAGES EUROPE / GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP
On New Year’s Eve, spirits were not celebratory in Israel, marked by the war and the detention of hostages in the Gaza Strip. For 2024, Israelis express their wishes for calm and peace.
At this dark end of the year in Tel Aviv, usually known for its nightlife, many Israelis wanted to mark the transition to the year 2024, but more soberly. Adar runs a bar in a popular part of town.
“We wondered for a long time what to do. We don’t organize big parties but we open. We raise a glass to mark the new year and we simply hope that it will be better than the previous one,” he explains. at the microphone of Europe 1.
For 2024, too difficult in this context, he says, to plan. But he simply hopes: “That we find calm and that this war ends”, formulates Adar.
Many more months of war
In a nearby bar, employees wear yellow bracelets around their wrists, in support of the hostages still held in Gaza. “I’m not one of those who believe that peace will come this year but I hope that we can have more hope that the soldiers come back, that the hostages come back and that we can see the country come back to life,” says the one of the employees.
An optimism that not everyone here shares. On the eve of the new year, the Israeli Prime Minister warned: the war will last for many more months.