Gordon Beach in Tel Aviv, Tuesday evening. It's a January chill outside, and the sound of waves can be heard through the rumble of cars. On the beach, eight young people play volleyball, as if it were not the beginning of winter.
On one of the previous nights, members of Alem – an association for at-risk youth – pulled several evacuated youths out of the water after drinking to a drunkard. Boredom, inaction and the temptations of the city brought them closer to alcohol. Absentmindedly, they decided to go into the sea, to see if they could meet the challenge of cold water. Only by a miracle does the "recreation" not end with disastrous results.
A girl dressed in sweatshirts and a coat walks back and forth on the promenade, shouting on her cell phone that she misses home and "can't see the hotel anymore." It's not hard to understand that the house she's talking about is two or three hours away – and actually a million light years.
Next to the Herods Hotel, they opened the Green Pub. The older evacuees, members of the kibbutzim who mix with the Tel Avivians, try to feel a little at home there. For 21 years, the pub operated in Kibbutz Nir with Shavu'ef, west of Sderot, and now it has reopened in the city non-stop.
Young people in front of a hotel in Tel Aviv that hosts evacuees (the subjects have no connection to the article), photo: Moshe Shai
It's late. In a normative world, children are supposed to sleep now, before school tomorrow. But a walk around the lobby of the hotels near the promenade reveals another world. A world where 7-year-olds ride a scooter in a hotel that has become their forced home. A world in which evacuated youth shut themselves in their rooms most of the day, and at night seek solutions to feelings and distress through addictive and stimulant substances, trying to forget their inner pain and boredom. A world in which 16-year-old girls also sit at midnight on the lobby couch, playing on their phones and laughing loudly, a laugh that is far more despair than joy.
"These terrorists scratched us. Yes, I'm scratched," says G., 16, who was evacuated from Sderot to Tel Aviv. "No home, no clothes, no some of my best friends who aren't here with me." In a trembling voice, she recounts how the terrorists who came to Sderot were near her home. How she heard the shouts and shots and fell silent. "It's a nightmare I didn't even know you could dream," she says quickly.
G.'s black hair is pulled back, with a small nasal nose. As someone who grew up in Sderot, she is ostensibly war-torn. But no one prepared her for months to stay in a place that was furthest from home. Living in one room, with her parents and two siblings, is starting to be stressful, she says.
Teens are evacuated in a social game. Korman-Yair: "Some of them are afraid to take the hotel elevators for fear that when the door opens, a terrorist will jump on them," Photo: Arik Sultan
"How can you live like this?"
An estimated 8,000 youths were evacuated to hotels at the start of the war (about 6,300 remain). Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Security figures (which do not include youth whose families independently evacuated to alternative housing) indicate that about 1,400 received assistance within the framework of the spaces and responses of the Ministry's Community Division. Of the youth evacuated to hotels, about 505 were already well known.
The vast majority of young people – some of whom moved from hotels to temporary apartments at the end of the year until they can return home permanently – find it difficult to create a sense of home in their new place. Very many report coping with negative emotions and distress.
Ministry of Social Affairs figures indicate that since 7 October, there has been an increase of more than 90 per cent in the number of calls by youth to the ministry's helpline for this age group. In the inquiries, the young people describe feelings of loneliness, anger and pain, and confess to using addictive substances. Some, according to the professionals we spoke to, face feelings of guilt for being alive.
"I work with the evacuated youth, and I see quite a bit of alcohol and substance abuse in an attempt to cope with the difficult situation," says Gaya Nir, director of "Breathing Spaces" – spaces for emotional support and primary trauma treatment at gathering centers for residents of the Gaza envelope, operated by ALEM in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Affairs.
"This is a youth who have gone through trauma and are trying to cope with it. We see this in the significant lack of sleep, depression, violence and dropping out of school, both covert and overt. Sometimes it is also seen that youth prefer to work rather than participate in studies, because when youth come from a city with a lower socioeconomic status to a city with a higher economic standard of living, they understand that here they will earn much more than they will receive in their hometown.
"These are all risky behaviors that characterize trauma. Professionals are afraid of what will happen in the future, so we must find the resources to treat the trauma now."
Gaia Nir. "An attempt to cope", photo: Yossi Zeliger
It's late, but G. knows she won't fall asleep. She said she "doesn't get along" at the Tel Aviv school to which she was assigned during the evacuation, and almost gave up school altogether. With no friends around her, she mostly feels lonely.
"My best friend is far away, in another hotel, and I can't go to her, certainly not at night. My boyfriend is in another city, which he is addressing. I don't sleep at night because I have nightmares about the situation – which wasn't supposed to be related to me, and suddenly it's the most connected. And if I can sleep, it happens during the daytime, and then I'm awake again at night. How can I live like that?"
Sometimes G. manages to pick herself up and is convinced that things will be okay, but her self-confidence is still shaken. She spends most of her time near the hotel, hanging out between the lobby and the nearby promenade. Afraid to walk away alone. With a boyish tone and an angry look, she deals for one normal moment with topics that should occupy a girl her age: friends. Clothing. Look.
"Everything I wear is not my clothes," she rages. "And I don't pay any attention to whether they're beautiful or right for me. Basically, I'm supposed to say thank you for every outfit they donate to me, even though someone else has worn it before.
"The hotel here is not like Sderot. Tel Aviv is completely different. I'm going down, and there's a lot of people out there living their lives. Everything is noisy, people shouting, hanging out, drinking. Sometimes I see guys beating up, and I walk away. But what else do I have to do? Sit in the lobby again? Again walk by the sea? So I'm strolling by the hotel with some other evacuated girls. Some boys try to start with us, but we're not in the mood at all.
"We're not in a good position, and boys older than me feel the same way. I feel like crying. I don't know when we'll get home, I don't know how to go on with life. I'm nervous and sad and I don't see how to get out of it. I wish we could find the way already."
Gaya Nir: "The concern is that the invisible people, the youth who are usually 'fine,' may return home, and then sink into severe depression or become addicted to dangerous substances, which they were introduced to during the evacuation period. You have to keep an eye out."
A., 15, came to Tel Aviv from Kiryat Shmona. His once-neatly styled hair is starting to grow wild. After more than two months away from home, the haircut bothers him less.
"I live in a bad movie," he says quietly, "you can't explain it, how suddenly the army comes and tells us, 'Go away,' and they don't even give us time to take clothes. Nothing. 'Get up and go.' So a hotel may sound fun, but you'll be here for more than a week, with all the mess here – and we'll see if you still think so. I live in one room with my parents and younger siblings. I keep thinking about my room at home, my bed, my computer. I have nothing here."
The look in his brown eyes stares into the distance, his tone angry. In his first week at the hotel, at the beginning of October, he and the guys were excited about staying in Tel Aviv. But it soon dawned on me that the temporary stay was going to be very long.
"At first I was afraid to leave the hotel room," he almost whispers. "At that point, WhatsApp and TikTok sent us videos of terrorists and battles against Israelis. We've seen it all. shells and Katyusha rockets, and full of destroyed houses. Both from the south, from Hamas, and from the north, from Hezbollah. Then suddenly I was afraid to go out.
"They told me I was traumatized. I don't know if that's true, or what it even means, but it wasn't until about two weeks later that I started going out to the lobby for a bit. Makes a short detour and returns to the room. I didn't have a head for school. Who has a brain for this now? How can I study history when my whole head is a mess and movies? That's not going to happen," he shakes his head.
So what do we do?
"I mostly walk around the hotel and nearby neighborhoods," he moves restlessly. "Sometimes you meet friends our age who have been evacuated, or those who live here. Once we smoke and drink, sometimes it ends with curses. More than a few times it also ended in beatings. It's not that you haven't drunk before, I've tried a few times, but since we've been here it's become something pretty regular.
"My father defined the situation well: the fuse is short and it lights up easily. For me, too. Sometimes I yell at my brothers, sometimes I fight with my parents. Sometimes he sits for two hours in Alem's compound, and suddenly in the middle of the fun gets a wink at a word someone said. And then I walk away, so it won't get worse."
E. (15): "We leave the hotel to meet friends who have been evacuated or local teenagers. Smoking and drinking, sometimes it ends with curses and beatings. It's not that we haven't drunk before, but since we've been here, alcohol has become something pretty regular."
In recent weeks, some of the evacuees have been told they can return home. Some, including A., were informed that they were staying at the hotel for at least another month. The uncertainty, and the separation from the new friends who have become his partners in fate, drive him crazy. "I don't know who will stay here, I don't know how we will stay. Once they announce that this community is being returned, and once another settlement, nothing is clear. But the truth is, I feel like another week is here – and I'm freaking out."
The counselor, Hila, from the ALEM organization, talks with an evacuated girl in a hotel. Gaya Nir: "How can they be expected to persist in their studies now?", Photo: Arik Sultan
Binge eating or fasting
Gaia Nir tries to believe in the power of youth. "I don't think they crashed," she reinforces. "The guys from the south came with a certain resilience, partly because they have been in a sensitive security situation for quite a few years, and also because the Corona period tempered them. There are quite a few teenagers who talk about what they went through, say it was difficult for them, but are looking for a way to move on. The problem is that the resources we have in the adult world are not enough to take care of them.
"I recently spoke with a boy from Sderot, who told me horror descriptions from the terrible Shabbat. I asked him how his studies were doing, and he said the question wasn't serious. It was as if he scolded me, saying that teenagers who had been through such a situation could not be expected to get up to school in the morning. There was a girl who said that she and her family prepared a meal for Simchat Torah that Shabbat morning, without understanding what was happening, and only later discovered that her friends from kibbutzim closer to the fence had been massacred. It left a mental scar on her, and I can understand that. Ostensibly, they can't be expected to keep up with their studies now."
According to Nir, in quite a few cities, there is a meeting between the evacuated youth and their local peers. These encounters often create a sense of belonging, but some are fraught with dangers – especially when they occur between youth defined as at risk. Nir, who is backed by the organization's work with at-risk youth, estimates that 80-70% of the evacuated youth, aged 18-12, now consume alcohol.
G. (16): "What do I have left to do? Sit again in the lobby or walk by the sea? We're not in good shape, I feel like crying. I don't know when we'll get home, I don't know how to go on with life. I don't see how to get out of it."
"This is a very worrying situation, with parents also in crisis, and the evacuated parents obviously experiencing a huge crisis. Teens understand that they need to rise up on their own – and it's not always a beneficial uplift. The adult world needs to find a way to adapt the treatment to the crisis that the youth are going through, because the fear is that the invisible ones, the teenagers who are usually 'fine' but here and there a little 'down', may return home, sink into more severe depression or become addicted to dangerous substances, which they were introduced to during the evacuation period. These are the guys we need to keep an eye on."
Two days after October 7, Noa Korman-Yair, an expert clinical psychologist, arrived in Eilat, where evacuees from the envelope also arrived, and stayed there. She was originally from Lehavim, and came to Eilat independently to help. In the past, as a psychologist in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council, she also treated Gush Katif evacuees. The same youth who were uprooted from their homes in the summer of 2005, and today are partly parents of the youth displaced in the current war.
Now she treats youth in Eilat on behalf of the resilience centers of the Eilat cluster. "Once you rip a boy or girl away from their resilience factors, they can be undermined," she explains. "A resilience factor gives belonging, whether it's a school framework, a youth movement, any sporting activity. Thanks to resilience factors, the boy or girl feels that they have a reason to get up in the morning, and that they have a place where they can express themselves even when the whole world around them goes crazy.
"One of the factors of resilience is parental competence. Parenting that sets boundaries in an inclusive way gives youth resilience. But when parents themselves are in a difficult situation - they are not always able to stop the child's deterioration.
"הנוער המפונה באילת סובל מהיעדר גורמי החוסן שהזכרתי. הם כמו בחופש גדול תמידי. אין להם סיבה לקום בבוקר, אין מי שישים לב מתי הם הולכים לישון. מצד אחד אין להם פרטיות, כי הם ישנים בחדר אחד עם עוד בני משפחה, ומנגד אי אפשר להכריח אותם להיכנס למיטה, ולעיתים קרובות הם מוצאים את הפתרון בשוטטות ובחוסר מעש.
"אנחנו מכירים את הקשר המחקרי שקיים בין טראומה לנטייה להתמכרות. לפי המחקרים, אדם שנחשף לטראומה נמצא בסיכון להתמכרות כדי לטשטש את הפלשבקים. וכשמשלבים עם טראומה צעירים חסרי מסגרת וחסרי גורמי חוסן - מקבלים נוער במצב סיכון מאוד גדול".
נועה קורמן־יאיר. "מצב סיכון", צילום: לירון מולדובן
כמטפלת בנוער המפונה, קורמן־יאיר פגשה צעירים מדוכדכים שלא זוכרים מה עשו היום, ולא יודעים מה יעשו מחר. "פגשתי בני נוער שהופכים יום ולילה, ישנים המון שעות, או לא ישנים בכלל. אוכלים בבולמוסים, או לא אוכלים בכלל. חלקם מפחדים לעלות במעליות המלון, מחשש 'שכשהדלת תיפתח יקפוץ עליהם מחבל'. חלקם מפחדים להתקלח לבד, או לסגור את דלת חדר המקלחת. זה מצב מאוד קשה.
"יש בני נוער שהמחבלים חדרו אליהם הביתה באותה השבת. הם כבר שלחו הודעות פרידה מהחברים שלהם, וניצלו לבסוף בנס. נער או נערה כאלה, שנמצאים בתחושה שהחיים יכולים להיגמר מחר, לא ידאגו לעתידם, אלא יתחילו לחיות את החיים המשוגעים עכשיו.
"כל אחד מהדברים האלה, ביחד ולחוד, מציב את הנוער במצב בעייתי. בהגדרתם, בני נוער עדיין בונים את האישיות המובחנת שלהם - ולכן הם כמו לוליין על חבל, שעלול ליפול בכל רגע. הם מפספסים את ההתבגרות התקינה, מה שעלול לגרור השפעות נוספות על האישיות שלהם בעתיד.
"נכון, חלק גדול מבני הנוער, בעיקר מהקיבוצים, באים מקהילה מאוד מחזקת. אבל הם גם מי שחוו את הטראומה בצורה הכי מוחשית. ובהיעדר גורמי חוסן ומקורות טיפול נכונים, הם נופלים להתנהגות לא בריאה.
נועה קורמן־יאיר: "הם נמצאים כמו בחופש גדול תמידי. אין להם סיבה לקום בבוקר, ואין מי שישים לב מתי הם הולכים לישון. אין להם פרטיות. לעיתים הם מוצאים את הפתרון בשוטטות חסרת כל"
"הנוער הזה עלול לפתח כאן גם דור שני ל־7 באוקטובר - כמו שהיה פה דור שני לשואה, שהיה צריך לגמור את כל האוכל מהצלחת, לא לדבר על קושי וכדומה. לא הייתי רוצה שיתפתח כאן דור שני ל־7 באוקטובר שלא ירשה לילדיו לעלות במעלית, שינעל עשר פעמים את הדלת, שיפחד שבכל יום יכולים להגיע מחבלים. אם לא יטפלו בבני הנוער האלה עכשיו - לצערנו נגיע גם למצב הזה.
"כשבני הנוער האלה יחזרו הביתה - וחלקם כבר התחילו לחזור למגורי קבע, אבל עדיין לא לבית שלהם - הם יצטרכו לקבל טיפול. ולכן זה אולי הזמן להקים בית חולים לבריאות נפש בנגב, כולל מחלקות שיטפלו בהתמכרויות".
"Who is more destined"
"I can define myself as lost," T., 16, who was evacuated from her home in Sderot to a hotel in Netanya, tells us. "'Lost' is a tough word, but that's really my feeling. I wake up to uncertainty, I don't know how I plan my day because I don't have the routine I was used to. Every day I ask myself what I will do, so as not to just sit in bed non-stop."
She is tall, her black hair pulled back. A short time ago she finished a workout in the hotel gym, through which she vents the pain. "I'm in deep thoughts all day, and it weighs heavily on my soul. It's hard. There are days when I'm down and nervous, and then even the family knows it's not worth talking to me. Luckily, I have a counselor in the Bnei Akiva youth movement, whose communication is very good, and she strengthens me. When she writes to me, 'You're capable, I'm proud of you,' I know I can get out of it."
Demonstration of evacuees from northern Israel demanding return to their communities, December 2023, photo: Eyal Margolin/Gini
The hotel in Netanya has one of Alem's "breathing spaces". As part of the need to provide the youth with an emotional response, the organization opened spaces in major cities, where initial contact was made with the evacuated young people. Here they are invited to relieve loneliness, process traumatic experiences and accept their anxieties and feelings of crisis. The spaces are part of a program of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Affairs, and are operated by various NGOs. As far as the teenagers we spoke with, they do indeed "give air to breathe."
The young people in the basement of the hotel are now engaged in a hectic backgammon tournament. It's almost 11pm. Tomorrow is a normal school day, but those present are busy playing games and loudly arguing about food in the dining room. Sometimes, some will say with a smile, there are arguments between the youth evacuated from the south and those evacuated from the north. Hidden competition over who comes from a more fate-stricken area, who can get more "credits" for the number of alerts or for direct hits in their place of residence.
T. was born and raised in Sderot, the second daughter in a family of six children. Her sister, Y., is two years her junior. Their father died two years ago from an illness, and the mother holds them all alone.
Y. wears a shirt that reads, "Sderot is my heart." The sisters' connection to their hometown, and the great diversity of Sderot from Netanya, cry out to the sky. "Sderot is an amazing city," says Y. "We lived it every day. The rockets were a reality that was always repeated, but we knew how to deal with it. Now it's a completely different reality.
"I didn't talk to people about it, but that Saturday I felt real fear for the first time. A fear I wasn't used to, because always when there were rockets there was also something to protect. The thought that someone could come and enter your house with a gun is very frightening. Since that Shabbat, I feel that rockets are already small on me."
Y. (14): "Many young evacuees have sadness, because we went through something very difficult. But we have to move forward because the world doesn't stop. They are trying to help us break free, and we also have to take care of ourselves so that we don't fall completely."
The very day after the massacre, when Sderot was still burning and the bodies of the murdered had not yet been evacuated, T. and Y. were smuggled out of the city. We got into the car with their mother and brother and arrived at the hotel in Netanya. They've been here ever since. Start in one room with the whole family, and after a few weeks split up. Z in the room with the brothers, Y. in the room with the mother. "Staying in a hotel, away from the war, takes pressure off, but it's not really home, and no one here really has their place," Sighs T.
Annoying questions in the elevator
This isn't the first time the two sisters have been evacuated. During long military operations in the Gaza Strip, they had already gone on pauses that lasted two or three weeks, but now this is the first time they have been away from home for months, not knowing when, if ever, they will be allowed to return. And in the absence of friends from home, T and Y. often spend time with each other, which sometimes includes fights.
"I'm a very sociable person, and in Sderot I used to go out a lot with friends," explains T., "but here I don't know many people, and it's very hard for me without my friends. Two weeks ago I felt like I was falling apart, I went crazy. I was depressed, nervous, I couldn't stop crying. I couldn't be in that environment anymore, which I'm not used to. There were a lot of moments when I wished I was here, because it's really hard."
T chose to invest her time in her studies. She studies mostly alone, but occasionally takes a bus to Jerusalem, to a learning center for the rest of her classmates. She works hard, she says, to pass a Bible exam and succeed in five units of English.
"It's not that I feel safe going to Jerusalem, which is not a quiet city in itself, but studies are important to me. In Netanya I am truly lost. Our parents think we have our place, because we're supposedly mature enough, but they can't see our alone. I know they're not dismissive, but my friends also say that their parents care about their younger children, and assume that as a teenager we'll manage on our own. They trust us more.
"The thing is, a teenager needs to talk to his parents the most. We're going through a very tough time. I tried to go to high school in Netanya, but it didn't work, neither academically nor socially. It's not easy to make new friends, it's not easy to establish yourself socially when you don't really have a foundation. Especially when I feel alien and unrelated.
"Not everyone sees it, but the youth of the south and the youth of the center are different. We have a different culture, different speech. We even dress differently, and when I come to class with the clothes I'm used to, I feel different. So why should I go somewhere that reminds me that I'm different? In Sderot I combined studies, work, gym and social life. It's very hard for me here."
Have you thought about moving to a hotel in Jerusalem, with your classmates?
"Nope. I'm a little scared for myself there, and I don't want to leave my family here. It is precisely in this situation that we need more to coalesce and unite. I also need to take a little more responsibility, because I have younger siblings. The truth is that it is easier for little ones to connect with others. 5-year-olds are very easily able to play with children their age, it's much harder for us. The guys our age went through a thing or two in life, especially that Saturday, and it makes you look at life differently."
Y. also tried to fit into a school in Netanya, but soon stopped attending school. "I felt outcast and different there," she shrugs. "At first, I would still go into social classes on Zoom, which the school organized, but later I found no point in them anymore. You know what annoys me the most? When adults, even people I don't know, who just go down the elevator at the hotel with me, ask me why I'm not in school. They look at me critically, as if I'm doing nothing with my life. It gives an unpleasant feeling."
The sound of an alarm-like motorcycle scorches the silence, and I jump instinctively. The nurses, on the other hand, don't understand what the fuss is about. The color red, the warning they know well from broadcasters, doesn't sound like a motorcycle.
"Do you realize how different we are?" they both chuckle.
"The frame is nonsense"
T. and Y. say that it is difficult for the evacuated youth to deal with questions such as what they did yesterday, what they will do today and when they will wake up tomorrow.
"I get up in the morning, sometimes at 10, sometimes at 11, sometimes after that. I don't really have hours," says T. "I can go to bed at 2 a.m. because I'll be surfing my phone, and then get up late and realize another day has been wasted. It's not that I'm missing something, because I don't really have anything to do, but it kind of sucks to pass the hours like that."
For Y., every day at the hotel is like an eternity. "I play on the PlayStation, walk around. I tried to go to school here, but my girlfriend left - so I left too. In Sderot I participated in an excellence program. They wanted me to continue the program in Netanya, but I don't have the energy. I don't feel like feeling different and alone.
"A framework during this period is, for me, nonsense. I say this quite sadly, but I don't connect with the youth here. It's a problem, because I don't want to be alone, but it's reality."
Meanwhile, Y. finds refuge on social media, in front of her peers. "We know how to say things that adults won't understand or feel. We have a common sense of humor that adults don't perceive, and our troubles are also quite similar, because our peers experience the current reality as we do."
Despite the difficulties, I also have an optimistic message to conclude: "I see that many teenagers are getting on with their lives. They have sadness, and they give it space, but they don't deal with it all day. We went through something very difficult, but we also have to move forward because the world continues to run. He was not arrested. They do all kinds of activities here to help us, the evacuated youth, free ourselves from the situation. We, for our part, must take care of ourselves, so that we do not fall completely."
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