There are students, technology employees, doctors, executives, unemployed. They invaded the large Mahane Yehuda market in West Jerusalem for one afternoon. They are passing through, between two fronts, between two wars, and they all have the same look, the same everyday sports clothes, with weapons that they never give up. Some people have drinks, call each other, go shopping. The soldiers of ’98.my The division recently left Gaza, where it completed more than six months of operation. Now they are heading towards the “northern front”, towards this other conflict that extends to Lebanon.
Yanay Cohen is like the others: he holds his weapon tightly against himself. It is dirty, encrusted with the dust of Gaza. Sometimes he lights the torch at the end of the cannon, as if to check that he is ready, that he will not betray him. Yanay, before October 7, 2023, was a guide in Jerusalem, an expert in the history of the city, from ancient times to modernity, doctoral level. He is now 49 years old, divorced and a permanent soldier.
His nerves seem to be in a worrying state. Wondering what it is, finally, “the trauma of October 7”since the reasons for going wrong have accumulated since then, and also questions the “level of post-traumatic stress disorder [trouble de stress post-traumatique] acceptable “, because he has no intention for a moment of escaping the war. “I think I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life. Well, I rather feared it. We live in a volcano. »
“The sign of a new era”
Here we see him sitting in a cafe, far from the noise of the paratroopers. On the morning of October 7, 2023, as the first images of the atrocities committed by Hamas appeared on social media, Yonay grabbed his gun, headed to the nearest barracks and volunteered to “defend Jerusalem”your city. “I saw the Hamas vans heading towards Sderot, it was the sign of a new era. In this I was not wrong. » There was no uprising in Jerusalem. Yanay is sent to Gaza. The weeks and months of operations follow one another.
In the cafe frequented by students from the nearby art school, the waitress sports intricate piercings and tattoos. He doesn’t look at her as someone privileged from behind. She doesn’t talk to him like a curious animal. The world is now full of men like Yanay, who can only talk about this war that devoured everything. His dotted story – not much can be said – reveals the details, sordid and grotesque at the same time, of life at the level of the ruins.
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