“This psychological war is the worst,” says Kelly Bouskila, a French emigrée who is enjoying an iced coffee in the shade with her pomeranian Ruby on Tel Aviv’s trendy Nahalat Binyamin Street. “My mum in France keeps telling me not to go too far from a shelter but I’m not worried. We’ve got to live our lives, right – every day is a gift, right?”

Israel is a place of many tribes, but for the 14 long days since the twin assassinations of terrorist leaders in Tehran and Beirut, the country has been in something akin to a lockdown. Awaiting Iran’s promised retaliation, its population is divided into two broad camps: the frightened and the philosophical. Both worry (with good reason) that the country could be hit at any moment with a lethal barrage from Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. But how people are coping varies immensely.

Families with children are the worst affected. 

Mor Peres, from the commuter town of Or Akiva, which sits between Haifa and Tel Aviv on the coastal plain, is “terrified” and all but housebound. “We rarely go out, only for food and other important things. And our baby (born just two weeks before the October 7 attacks) sleeps in the bomb shelter every night,” she told The Telegraph. 

Another young mum, Leeat Wayne, who moved from London to Ra’anana in central Israel eight years ago, is also terribly anxious. “My worst fear is that an attack happens when my kids aren’t with me,” she says. “The other night I watched a movie with my daughter where air sirens rang. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest. It’s terrible to live like this.”

Anyone who has heard the scream of an Israeli air raid siren and the deafening protective blasts of the country’s Iron Dome defence system knows the true meaning of the phrase ‘to jump out of your skin’. The popular Home Front Command mobile app is in some ways even more startling, blaring into life a second or two ahead of time. The knowledge that the whole civil alert system is accurate to within a few blocks, and only sounds in your area (or pocket) if a projectile is headed your way, only heightens its terror-inducing impact.

“In Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, we have 90 seconds for rockets fired from Lebanon or Gaza, but if you are in the north or the south it’s just 30 seconds, maybe less,” a security source tells me. “We can probably deal with missiles and drones coming from Iran because of the distance. But the threat from Hezbollah [in southern Lebanon] is another thing because of their proximity and the size of their arsenal. Even with US help, we could not stop all of them.”

While everyone is worried, most Israelis are getting on with life. “I would just like it over with,” says the manager of the hotel I’m staying at. “Whatever they are going to do, just do it. This waiting is the worst – never knowing what’s going to happen.” Nur, 21, who works in the hotel’s restaurant agrees. “Just shoot! Give me the missiles,” he says.

Out on the street, there’s a stoicism among both old and young. Yossi Yelin, 67, runs a fabric business that his father started 80 years ago, before Israel was even founded. “I think what will be will be,” he says sitting in the shade and smoking a nice fat cigar outside his shop. “This state is 75 years old and it’s been the same all that time. My father saw a shooting just there, over the road, in 1947. My daughter has moved with her family to London, but not me, I’m not moving anywhere.”

At the nearby Carmel Market, the largest open air market or – or shuk - in Tel Aviv, trade is thin and many stalls have closed because of the lack of tourists, and because so many Israelis fear wandering too far from their apartment block bomb shelters. Raina Sasi, 60, who runs an 85-year-old olive stall, says everyone is “stressed” and that businesses are “collapsing”, but that “we will overcome”. “It’s like a woman giving birth,” adds the mother of three and grandma of seven, “You say ‘never again’, but you always return to it in the end.” 

Down on the beachfront, Shlomi Mintz, 50, is working out in an open air gym in sweltering 36 degree heat. He also takes a philosophical view: “For now there are some white clouds in the sky but not black ones.

“We’re alert but not worried. No one likes to wait, not in lines [queues] or in war, but that is how it is. For now we are still enjoying the beach and hoping for the release of the hostages.”

Further up the broadwalk, Illana Weizman, 40, a political writer, is playing on the sand with her son Dove while her mum shelters in the shade. She says that there has been a “permanent level of stress” hanging over Israel ever since October 7, one that fluctuates, but not dramatically. “Sadly, we have got used to it – it’s the new norm”, she says. “Sometimes when you scroll through the news it’s worse, but recently I’ve been watching the Olympics. Many friends have suitcases packed in case they have to go but we are lucky and have a shelter in our apartment”.

Like the rest of us, Israelis like to feel that their government is on the front foot and in control of events, but the last few weeks and months have caused people to question that, with opinion polling showing a slide in support. Across the left, right and centre, rates of Jewish Israelis who say they feel “anger,” “disappointment,” or “frustration” are considerably higher than those expressing satisfaction, pride, or trust, according to the latest polling.

When the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) bombed the consular section of the Syrian Embassy in Damascus in April, well placed security sources in Israel said they did not think Iran would hit back directly because it never had done so before. Yet two weeks later came one of the biggest ever barrages of drones and missiles ever launched from Iran into Israel, shattering old notions of deterrence. 

The twin assassinations in Tehran and Beirut two weeks ago are seen by some here as an effort to reassert Israeli deterrence – but by others as a dangerous provocation. “The government is bringing chaos,” says Galia, 68, who tells me she never moves far from the secure room in her Tel Aviv apartment. Like many loving parents here, she has adult children who are now “talking about moving away”.

Ironically, huge numbers of Israelis are acquiring second passports from countries like Spain, Portugal, Austria and Germany – countries which persecuted Jews in the past and now offer citizenship schemes and a possible safe haven. “I love this country and don’t want to leave, but we talk about it all the time,” a senior scientist with a young family, who has recently applied for Romanian citizenship, told me over drinks on Monday.

The deferred response of Iran and Hezbollah to the recent assassinations is also causing considerable angst. If, as many suspect, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his generals thought the Arab response would be quick, emotional and unthinking, they were wrong.

Instead, Iran and its terrorist proxy Hezbollah have taken what one Israeli describes as a “western approach” to its revenge – that is, a dish best served cold and at a time and place of their choosing. Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s longtime leader, says that keeping Israel on tenterhooks is part of their “punishment”. “Their government, their army, their society, their settlements and their occupiers are all waiting,” Nasrallah said in a recent speech. Keeping Israel waiting is “part of the battle,” he added.

As of now, all eyes are on a possible diplomatic solution to the crisis, and ceasefire negotiations are to be held in Doha on Thursday. On Tuesday, Iranian officials said Iran would not launch an attack if there was a ceasefire deal in Gaza. It’s the first time Iran has linked its threatened retaliation to the Gaza peace and hostage negotiations, and US officials are encouraging it. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday night that it was his “expectation” that Iran would hold off on a retaliatory strike if a ceasefire agreement was reached. And on Wednesday, his envoy Amos Hochstein said he believed war with Hezbollah could also be avoided.

In Tel Aviv, that means everyone once again scrolling on their phones manically, trying to predict the next turn of this diplomatic and military rollercoaster. Their lives could depend on it. Opinions differ sharply. Mintz, from the outdoor gym on the beach, thinks it’s better to “deal with Iran now”, lest it comes back later with nuclear warheads. Meanwhile, a local journalist and photographer wondered if Netanyahu or his opposite number, Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar, would ever allow a ceasefire deal to be completed. “It’s not in their interests,” he said.

For them, and the rest of Israel, the long wait continues. “It’s like the Covid lockdowns, never knowing how long they would go on,” my scientist friend tells me. “But at least then you knew there would be an end.”