Huge billboards depicting leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah looking beaten and bound as Israeli soldiers stand over them, line the main thoroughfares in the coastal city of Tel Aviv. The words: “We love you, we trust you,” directed at the Israeli army and: “Never again,” are printed big and bold. The graphic AI-generated imagery has elicited different responses from the Israeli public; some find the campaign repugnant, many others have welcomed it.
Ofer Rosenbaum, 36, whose PR work has had previous brushes with controversy, is behind the provocative campaign launched last week that he hopes will help restore trust in Israel’s security forces.
“Everyone, everywhere is asking: ‘How could it happen?’” says Rosenbaum. “It was painful and humiliating what Hamas did. Where was the army? The field unit couldn’t get there because they were in other places. OK, we thought that we had the toughest air force in the world. Why couldn’t they bring in some choppers? But there was nothing.”
In an unprecedented and previously unimaginable attack, 1,400 Israelis were killed and about 4,500 injured when Hamas militants unleashed devastating violence across Israeli communities bordering Gaza. It has left the country reeling, with government and military officials facing huge criticism over how one of the world’s most powerful militaries could have allowed such an event to take place.
In response to the attack, Israel has delivered ferocious retaliatory strikes into Gaza, killing nearly 5,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to figures from the Hamas-run Gaza health authority. Meanwhile, airstrikes and raids by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) carried out across the occupied West Bank, in addition to increased violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers, have led to the deaths of 91 Palestinians.
Rosenbaum says the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, but not everyone sees the campaign as a good thing. Observing a billboard from across the highway, retired accountant Simona Yaloz, 65, said she was disgusted by the image.
“I hate it, really, it’s not the Israeli attitude,” Yaloz said. “This is very extreme, it’s too violent. There are extreme people here but we’re trying to avoid it.”
But controversy is what Rosenbaum seeks. If people are responding, they’re talking about the campaign, he said. The father-of-four is known for controversial campaigns, including one to prevent the extradition of a teacher accused of child sexual abuse in Australia – which he has since described his involvement in as a mistake.
“The ‘Never Again’, it’s now,” said Rosenbaum, who has funded the campaign himself. “We as Jews say to one another that Israel is the one place that you’re safe. No. No. Because in Britain this didn’t happen, it didn’t happen in the US, no. It happened in our back yard.”
Rosenbaum has also released divisive videos aimed at rousing public support for the IDF to do “whatever they need to”.
“We are going to have some problems with the world. The state of Israel has stopped previous operations because the world told us: ‘Stop this, this is enough.’ But what is enough?” he said.
In Tel Aviv, despite many businesses remaining closed for the time being, life has started to resume; cafes are making coffee again, some shops have lifted their shutters and families and friends could be seen taking a stroll together on Sunday. But the city remains much quieter than usual.
Shop assistant Dash Tumansky, 23, said more than 100 people in her neighbourhood of Petah Tikva, a small city just a few miles east of central Tel Aviv, had been volunteering to help keep the area safe but the bus ride to work was a fraught experience.
“It’s scary to get here, 40 minutes is a long time. There have also been terrorist attacks targeting the buses. There is increased security on the trains but it’s not the case for the buses,” she said. “And if there are rocket warning sirens along the route, I wouldn’t know where to go to take shelter.”
Tumansky said she and her friends were still trying to process what has been described as the biggest attack on Israel. A friend of hers was among the 260 killed at the music festival.
“Things like this never happen. There is so much surveillance around the border of Gaza – cameras and soldiers guarding the area,” she said. “People are scared to be outside at the moment.”
However, she said she felt reassured by the way the nation had pulled together after months of political turmoil. “I think it’s the most united we’ve ever been,” she said.
Fashion designer Shiran, who only gave one name, said she and her husband were supportive of the billboard campaign. “We both smiled when we saw it. I think we’ve been too kind and too nice for too long. We’ve let people outside of Israel tell us what we can and can’t do,” said the 30-year-old.
Like many others, Shiran said she feels less safe in her day-to-day life since the attack and blames the Israeli authorities for allowing it to have happened.
“I know the government is trying to do its best now but it’s unbelievable – we never imagined something this big could happen to us, that thousands of terrorists would be able to enter Israel and kill us,” she said.
On the lower-ground floor of a shopping complex, volunteer Lia Sendik, 27, helps sort through donations for Israelis directly affected by the war. She described her disbelief as she watched the fallout of the Hamas attack.
“We’ve experienced stuff here before, but no one ever expected any of this,” said Sendik. “We used to believe so intensely that we are safe here.”
But the history and film graduate said that despite the anger many feel towards the Israeli authorities, it hasn’t stopped them from signing up to the army.
“They had 360,000 reservists, because they believe in our strength. People are still ready to fight for the country,” said Sendik.
