Far from Gaza: among Israeli soldiers on leave in India

On his right hip, he has a long scar. And in his future, four more surgical operations to go through. He drew aside a curtain, and everything blew up. But actually, in war what’s toughest is not fighting, he says: it’s staying still. Like, on guard. “Because at that point, you start thinking. At that point, you are alone with yourself. In Gaza, when all is quiet it’s awful”.

Itai Levy is 22 years old. On October 7th, 2023, he was less than halfway through his military service, he was on leave, but he had no doubt: he grabbed an M16, and went straight to the kibbutz of Kfar Aza. Nor did he have any doubt after that. And he went to Gaza. “Did you feel ready?”, I ask. I don’t know, he says. But in the end, no one is ever truly ready for war. Because war is the kingdom of the unexpected. But in Kfar Aza I would never have backed out, he says. Now, I don’t know. When the IDF call me up again: I don’t know if I’ll return. “I know history. My father’s father lost his whole family in the Holocaust. But in 1948, he fought so that his children would never experience war. And instead, all his children were in war. And his children’s children. And each war was worse than the previous one.”

This was the October 7th war, he says. But now, whose war is it?

And so, for now he is here. In Manali.

In the Himalayas.

After three years of military service (two for women) many Israelis backpack through South America, or more often, through Asia. Because it’s cheap, because there it’s not risky for Jews: and because there is first-class hashish. A bit like the Hippie Trail of the 1970s. In India, there are so many Israeli travellers that some towns are now nicknamed Little Israel. They have rabbis, Shabbat dinners, and cafes with falafel, avocados and signs in Hebrew sign. Manali is in the north, and it is a cluster of homes scattered among woods of streams and waterfalls, which, in the evening, shines with lights and fireflies like a fairy tale. Its red bridge is the icon of the so-called Hummus Trail. Instead of Lonely Planet guides, and sandals and dreadlocks, the Israelis have Google Maps and Adidas sneakers, and the shaved heads of draftees; instead of Volkswagen vans, they drive Royal Enfields. But the spirit is the same. Only, on their bikes they now have stickers in memory of their fallen comrades.

And hashish: they no longer smoke it to open the doors of perception, but to shut them down. To forget.

“No one is under any illusion. Israel is not safer than before 10/7. This war makes no sense anymore: all that could be achieved with weapons, has been achieved. But honestly, a ceasefire doesn’t make sense either. Or we will have a new October 7th,” says Micah Cohen, 26 years old, as he passes the yellow ribbon symbolizing the hostages between his fingers over and over again, like a rosary, and on Telegram, he follows his team, which is in Rafah: and he is here, but also a little there. One day this conflict will be over, he says. And there will be peace. Real peace. But if you are an Israeli, an ordinary Israeli, who doesn’t have any power, the problem is today, is tomorrow. And today and tomorrow, the only thing to do is to defend yourself. And oversee Gaza, oversee Lebanon. Rein in Iran. “The issue is not Hamas. Hamas is an extremist movement like many others. The issue is everybody else. The so-called moderates. The Mustafa Barghoutis that you love so much, and who campaign for one state just because in one state, the Arabs will soon be the majority. On October 7th, this was the trauma. There was not a Righteous One, across the Wall, not a single one, who condemned Hamas”.

Now there are many, he says. But only because they have lost. When they believed to be strong, he says, they all lashed out at us. And isn’t this, he says, in short, the history of the Jews?

“Everybody agrees that there is no military solution. That Hamas is not the al-Qassam Brigades: it is an idea. But what is missing is precisely politics,” he goes on. “On October 7th, we had to react. But now, we have to rebuild. And not just materially. What life do we prospect to the kids who dream of becoming Yahya Sinwar? What alternative? And yet, no one does anything. Not Netanyahu: not the Arabs. Who have no plan. Should we even want to talk, who is in charge? Hamas? Mahmoud Abbas? Iran? Saudi Arabia? Do they really think they can erase us? Hamas is an idea: but Israel, too, is an idea”.

“And the result, is that every rule has been broken. The result is that we are resembling Hamas more and more”, says Ben Yaish, drinking his third gin of the day at 10 a.m. He is 31 years old, a Jew of Yemeni descent: but like most of his generation, he has never spoken to an Arab. He has only seen Palestinians from the monitors of checkpoints. Because before the Oslo Accords, before 1993, there were no borders, there were no barriers, you could go anywhere: but now that the West Bank and Gaza are, on paper, autonomous, Israelis are forbidden access. He was in Gaza until two weeks ago. “And in Gaza you turn off your mind, and do your job. And that’s it. Or you freak out. But then, you come across Palestinians. Maybe during a search. And… And you realize that they are just like you. I mean, victims of the war, of course, and of Hamas, but even before that, of history. Of 1948. Of the British. Of Hitler. Of everything. Exactly like us. Each one does to the other what the other does to him, each time with a little more cruelty: but in the end, we don’t even know each other”.

I’m here, but I’d like to be in Beirut, he says. In Damascus.

“We are just pawns. The Arabs use the Palestinians, but the United States? Don’t they use Israel?”, he says. “We are all hostages.”

“But at least now everything is clear. All the rhetoric of coexistence, of the two states: it was just a charade. No one here toasted to Sinwar’s death. Nor will anyone toast to Khamenei’s. Because nothing is decisive. And the only way is to live with this reality. With peace of mind. Peace of mind is the only feasible peace,” says Daniel Kaplan, 24 years old, who gets in, and instinctively, opts for the innermost table of the bar: in case there is an explosion. On October 7th, he was at the Nova. And at the Nova, he says, I will be forever.

For Israelis, everything has changed, but one thing: it is still October 7th.

True, they have always been at war. But the war had always been elsewhere. In Jenin, in Gaza, in Lebanon. Or at most, in the street. While now, it is at home. Or rather, on top of you. Now, Iranian missiles are piercing the Iron Dome. And even if between the over 61,000 Palestinians dead, and 15,000 missing, 4% of the population of Gaza, and the 2,000 Israelis, 0.02% of that of Israel, the ratio is roughly thirty to one, this is the longest of wars. “And it’s complicated. The IDF, the Intelligence, the government, the governments, actually, of all colors: everyone assured that it was all under control. And instead, first October 7th. And now, this endless war. In which the interests of Netanyahu, and the settlers, meddle with the interests of the state: and you don’t bomb if you need bombing, but if it’s convenient. If there is a hearing in a trial. If there is a Knesset vote for the enlistment of the ultra-Orthodox. Who controls whom?”, says Sarah Weiss, who is not in the mood for talking, she says, she is here to disconnect, to disconnect from everything and everyone: but then, she talks for an hour straight. She gets up, she goes away, she comes back. She goes away again. She lights one cigarette after another. She is 21 years old. On October 7th, she was on duty in one of the bases that were assaulted: she is the only survivor of her team. “That’s why nobody really rises up. That’s why Netanyahu is still in power, even though he has everyone against. Because either you have war in Gaza, or you have a showdown: you have civil war.”

“And the point is that if you are an Israeli, you have only one certainty: Israel. But now, what is Israel? Is it protecting me? Or is it digging my grave?”, he says, and now, in fact, it is as if the Israelis only have other Israelis: that’s why, after Gaza, they all come here. To stay away from Israel: but among Israelis.

Because only among Israelis do they feel safe, and above all, understood.

And a bit, because they fear ending up in The Hague. They fear that you might not be from La Repubblica: but from Amnesty International.

Manali is not so small. It has about 8,000 people. And many foreigners, because it is in one of the most famous valleys of the Himalayas, the Valley of Gods, dotted with shrines and temples. In a valley nearby lives the Dalai Lama. But the Israelis are all on one bank of the river. “They are kind of a community. Closely bound to each other. Too much. Kind of a bubble. They exclude you,” says one of the DJs. “There is no interaction. We try to make money, and nothing else.” And anyway, better so, he says. “They are here dancing and getting high: and in the meantime, they exterminate the Palestinians.”

That’s all you should write, he says. One line is enough.

Not that he cares too much about the Middle East. In India, the priority is rather Kashmir. But the Israelis, he says, you know: they are the masters. They are allowed everything. “Here, some bars are for Israelis only,” he says. It is not true: they are for foreigners only - as elsewhere, it is not Zionism: it is colonialism. But that’s the rumour.

“By the way, who says that on October 7th, it was Hamas to attack?”, says the soundman.

“Where were the IDF?”, he adds.

“This story is like Covid-19,” he says. “After a day, Israel already had the vaccine.”

From Gaza to anti-Semitism, it’s a short step.

“Look. Look how they move in groups. Three by three. Automatically. As if they were on patrol. Look how they watch around, while they talk to you. Should there be a sniper. They have never been more fragile than now that they are invincible,” says Zac Stein, a yoga teacher who left Tel Aviv because the Jews, he says, went to the Middle East to build Israel: not to demolish Palestine. He has been in India for thirty years. Thirty years that he sums up bluntly: from LSD to PTSD. “They sense that they are wrong, that they have more and more enemies: but it is a feeling that remains there. In the background. Because the Israelis are no longer used to thinking, but to following orders. To obeying. To resolve everything with force,” he says. And wasn’t this fascism, he says? Isn’t that why we burned in the ovens? For the Eichmanns? “And sadly, they are getting better. I mean… Psychologically. Little by little, they are adjusting. And that’s not good. Because in a country where you live with a shelter in your home, an M16 over your shoulder, being normal is not normal.”

They’ll take down Iran, and then what?, he says. What will be of Israel?

More than changing things, he says, this war has changed the Israelis.

“It’s not easy. Because like all veterans, they only talk to those who have been in war. They tell you: Only those who have been in war can judge. And so, they only talk to the mirror.”

They come here, and go from a rave to next. In the woods. Or they play the adrenalinic sports these areas are popular for. Rafting, paragliding, climbing. Snowboarding. Awake for as long as possible, awake 24h: because night has no mercy - with its silence, its quiet: its loneliness. Until they give in. And they fall asleep in a jeep. In a field. In a café. Ezra Klein is from Be’eri, and on October 7th, he was there. In the butchery. He stares at the snow-capped peaks. For hours. Locked in himself.

He only says: “In Gaza, I thought I would get over Be’eri. And instead, now all is Be’eri.”

“I have been here before. But now, it’s different. Now, it’s no longer a journey: it’s an escape. An escape from the war, from Israel: from everything,” says Noah Miller, 27 years old, who has been in Gaza for six months, but says: No. I never was in Gaza. Because in six months, I have never seen Gaza. “And it’s no coincidence that we all come to India, because India is by definition the country of spirituality, and research. And it’s the opposite of Israel. More than another country, it’s another world. With improvisation, rather than organization. Everyone has countless problems, here: but it’s not a problem. In Israel, we are all focused on the future, on its unknowns. On how to dodge the danger. But then you come here, and you understand that it doesn’t matter. Even if you don’t organize everything, you don’t control everything, even if you don’t dominate everything: it still works,” he says. “Every Israeli should come here. India should be as mandatory as the military service,” he says, while suddenly, there is a sizzle, and lights go off: and instantly, everyone gets on the ground.

Everyone takes cover.

Even though here, blackouts are frequent.

One smashes his glass. “Fuck you, Hamas”, he says. “Fuck you.”

He looks at me, he says: “That’s not what I am.”

And he walks away.

Elijah Berg lost all his friends at Nova. He was there until the night before. And he was at Ben Gurion, he was checking-in for Delhi when Tel Aviv airport was hit by a Houthi missile. And now, he says, I’m scared. Just scared. He makes and unmakes origami with a napkin, alone. Always the same napkin. “I wish Gaza would disappear. Every day, every hour, every minute you have new raids, new deaths. New carnages. And that’s why I’m here,” he says. “But that one, that one doesn’t seem Gaza?” he says, pointing to a shabby man, barefoot, who begs in the street of sun and dust, “And that one?” he says, pointing to another, lying in the shadow of a wall, as if motionless, “And there? And there?” he says, where there is only a widening, instead, a dirt widening, but then I get it: there is nothing. That’s why, he says, it seems Gaza. And he makes and unmakes his origami. “I dream the same dream every night,” he says. “I’m at a gas station, and Arabs come, and start shooting. And I shoot back. I have an M16, and I shoot, I shoot, I shoot everyone. But instead of killing the Arabs, I kill my friends.”

“And I’m left alone.”

How do you get out of all this?, he says. How?, his head bowed.

He pulls himself up. He says: Do you have any weed?

As run in Il Venerdì di Repubblica on August 8^th, 2025