2023 – Wars, protests and political drama.
Malte Ian Lauterbach reflects on the year 2023 - a year of bloodshed, a year of wars, protests and fundamental changes. As reporters for Berlin Story News, we were often directly involved in key moments such as the Israeli protests against judicial reform and the conflict with Hezbollah, and we often reported on the hot spots in the Middle East before many other German media outlets.
For me personally, the year 2023 started on the roof of a high-rise building in Jerusalem. The New Year's resolution of my conversation partner, an officer in the Israeli Air Force, was to do more sports. My own resolution was to talk to more people about war, possible peace, and to publish more. After a year, dozens of articles, three books coming out in 2024 or 2025, and traveling to 11 countries, I can safely say that I have fulfilled my resolutions.
At the end of January, a serious attack shook life in Israel's capital. A young gunman opens fire near a synagogue in eastern Jerusalem, killing 7 people. Two of them are Eli and Natali Mizrahi (48 and 46 years old), who witnessed the first shots and rushed onto the street to help the injured. The bloodbath occurred on International Holocaust Remembrance Day and caused a global outcry. Even the Secretary General of the United Nations criticized the massacre in a rare statement, while militias in Palestinian cities handed out sweets to celebrate their “martyr.”
Shortly afterwards, a woman and her small children find themselves in a life-threatening situation in the West Bank. Your car is surrounded, stones and garbage are flying. By a miracle they are rescued by Palestinian police officers. However, the vehicle is completely robbed and then bursts into flames. To this day it stands like a gloomy memorial on the side of the street in the suburb of Nablus.
Weeks later, a former U.S. Marine is severely shot by multiple gunshots while driving his car. Despite massive external bleeding, he manages to get his wife out of danger. Shortly afterwards he collapses, but Israeli surgeons are able to save his life. The shooters are believed to be associated with the Islamic Jihad in Palestine. The following months were repeatedly marked by bloody attacks on civilians, including many women and children. It would probably be impossible to list them all.
In the event of an attack, I was much closer to it than I personally would have liked. It's a quiet spring evening in Tel Aviv as I meet with an organizer of protests against judicial reforms in a small bar. Suddenly, just a few hundred meters away, gunfire erupts. Several people are wounded and a passerby shoots the assassin. After the brief shock and the realization that our first aid is not needed, we return to our beer. This is also how life is in Israel.
The protests against the judicial reforms in question will begin on January 7th, 2023. Initially less than 350 demonstrators will grow to around 14 demonstrators on January 80th, a massive growth for a movement that would paralyze large parts of public life months later. Massive growth for a movement that polarized an entire country in just a few weeks.
Not only at the kitchen tables and in the pubs of the nation, but also in the ranks of the state, there is increasing polarization, public conflicts and massive mudslinging - in a Knesset session the situation escalates when politicians get into a fight that can only be handled by security guards can be calmed down. The video of a politician jumping onto the podium and using obscene insults is not only going viral in Israel. The protest movement is gaining momentum across the country, even in comparatively moderate Jerusalem.
On March 23, more than 20% of citizens across the country took to the streets against the judicial reform. In Tel Aviv the movement is taking on almost revolutionary characteristics. On the city's main highway, marshmallows are grilled over burning barricades while police watch without intervening. In many places people are withdrawing and are hardly present on the streets. Hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of Tel Aviv cheerfully sing the national anthem and wave the flag of their country, which their fathers and grandfathers once built and whose “turn away from democracy” they do not want to accept.
The following day, Defense Minister Gallant appeared before the press. His speech, previously considered routine by many, is becoming the pivotal point for judicial reform. Gallant expresses his discomfort with the proposed changes and emphasizes the critical importance of preserving the independence of the judiciary for Israel's security and the fragile balance of power in Israel's democratic system.
In doing so, he highlights the danger posed by the current division in Israeli society and warns: “The division in Israeli society can provide our enemies with an excellent opportunity.” A warning whose bitter reality will reach the country in October. The implication of his words is clear: Gallant is committed to stopping justice reform. Prime Minister Netanyahu's reaction follows almost immediately - that same night he announces the dismissal of the defense minister.
The impact of this speech and the dismissal that followed spread rapidly throughout the country. On the same day, there were massive demonstrations in the cities, with over a million people protesting across the country - an impressive mobilization in a country with around 9 million inhabitants. The Israeli consul in New York is resigning - with, of all things, a simple tweet "Fuck this, I quit" - and mayors in several Israeli cities are going on hunger strike.
As the country's largest union, the Histadrut, calls for an indefinite general strike, hundreds of thousands of protesters block roads across Israel, and various sectors, including universities, shopping malls, unions and large companies, join the general strike. All air traffic to Israel was stopped, workers stopped work in the largest ports, and even the stock exchange closed early. The media was talking about a new Arab Spring - and this feeling was also on the streets.
In view of the seemingly hopeless situation, Israel's President Isaac Herzog appealed to the Prime Minister on March 27 to freeze the legislative process. He followed the call in a televised speech, but emphasized that the judicial reform would be continued at a later date. The mayors of the Tel Aviv districts ended their hunger strike, the union went back to work, and the universities continued teaching. The general strike, which lasted less than 24 hours, was successful. Since then, the judicial reform has become quiet - even members of Netanyahu's government describe the judicial reform as "dead". If the massacre and the consequences of October 07.10th had never happened, judicial reform would have been my personal “top story” of the year.
In a hasty move, the defense minister was even called back to office a few weeks later when there were serious rocket attacks from Lebanon. It is April 6th, the day before Passover. Passover is traditionally considered the festival where Jewish families all over the world come together to celebrate the exodus of the Israeli people from Egypt - so people in northern Israel also come together to commemorate the "Exodus" from sundown to sundown.
Although there had been repeated rocket attacks in the south of the country, the general opinion was that everything was safe in the north of Israel. And then the rockets fell.
Palestinian militias fired more than 30 rockets into northern Israel from southern Lebanon.
This marks the worst rocket attack from Lebanon on Israel since the 2006 Lebanon War, in which Israel fought against the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. The Israeli Air Force reacted very cautiously to the attacks, also in order not to irritate the Hezbollah militias in southern Lebanon. One of their goals – a flock of sheep.
In the midst of these tense times, I accompany the Israeli army on intensive exercises in the north of the country. The simulation envisions militias attempting to infiltrate the northern border, accompanied by devastating rocket attacks that surprise Israel's air defenses. Massive damage would be the result of this case - which was still theoretical at the time. The tense situation in the region continues to worsen, especially after previous rocket attacks.
My year in the Middle East ends with a hike along the coast of Israel. From the majestic cliffs in Rosh Ha'Nikrah on the border with Lebanon to the sun-drenched beaches in the south bordering the Gaza Strip, I'm ending my year in the Middle East. For now.
Shortly after the end of my stay in the Middle East, I traveled to Ukraine for Berlin Story News to do research there. So I travel through Kyiv - whose vibrancy and diversity is only sporadically interrupted by airstrikes - using the world's deepest subway, built to survive nuclear war. With the stations 105 meters underground – still a world record today – this would certainly have been possible.
After menacing amounts of cherry schnapps with a German volunteer clearing mines in Ukraine, my journey continues to Kharkiv, just before the Russian-Ukrainian border. The fact that this major city, just 30 kilometers from Russia, is under Ukrainian control illustrates the failure of the Russian invasion. Here the suburbs bear witness to the traces of the war - to where the Russian tanks advanced before the Ukrainian army could stop them. The world-famous photos of Ukrainians in Kyiv and Kharkiv building Molotov cocktails to confront Russian soldiers went viral in 2022. Here, too, I encounter stories of hope - people who survived despite all odds, but also stories of suffering - people who lost everything and everyone. In a suburb of Kharkiv we come under fire - BM-21 Grad, a Soviet-made missile system. The name “Grad,” which means hail, already reveals the system’s lack of precision.
The Russian army does not use Grad to attack precise targets; the sole purpose is to spread terror, accompanied by the shrill screech of rockets. So we find ourselves in a “storm of steel,” a term I borrowed from Ernst Jünger’s book about his experiences in the First World War. And it is precisely in this “storm of steel” that the people of Ukraine remain stuck to this day. As I write these lines, heavy Russian airstrikes are killing more than 10 people across the country.
In the early morning of October 07.10th, I received a call from an acquaintance in the Israeli army. The air alarm sirens can be heard in the background. He only says one sentence: “We are at war, we are at war”. Then he hangs up. The situation in the morning is like something out of a nightmare. Thousands of rockets have been fired across Israel, the border in the south has been overrun, and there are reports of firefights on the border with Lebanon. A surprise attack by Hamas hit the entire country out of nowhere. Hamas militias have barbarically tortured, raped and massacred more than 1200 civilians in southern Israel. These images are burned into the eyes of every media worker. Not only the brutality, but also the extreme surprise of the attack shocked everyone in the country. Thanks to covert mediation with Qatar, an agreement with Hamas was actually no longer unthinkable - the last spark of hope for a two-state solution.
Three months later, fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas has left more than 20.000 people dead in the Gaza Strip and the humanitarian situation is catastrophic. Not all of the hostages have been exchanged. The ceasefire with Hamas collapsed after a few days because Hamas refused to exchange the remaining hostages. Instead, they opened fire again with rockets. The situation appears hopeless for both sides. The Israeli army's main goal is to free all hostages and completely destroy Hamas. Hamas' main goal, as stated in its charter, is the death of all Jews and the destruction of Israel. The war will therefore continue. The chances of peace are slim since more than 80% of the population in the Gaza Strip believed in the massacre on October 07.10th. support, as studies show. In Israel, trust in Netanyahu continues to decline, and more and more people would now prefer Defense Minister Gallant as prime minister.
Gallant's warnings about the country's divisions in particular sound bitter these days. Netanyahu's lack of trust in the intelligence community ensured that important warnings were ignored and indicators overlooked. The next few months will show how long Israel's citizens will continue to trust Netanyahu and when new elections will be necessary. It would be the sixth time in three years.
At the end of the year I will travel to the Middle East for the last time of this long year. This time my journey takes me to Jordan. In 10 days I'll travel through the country, talk to old and new acquaintances, talk about the situation in the Middle East, the war, the economy and diplomacy. The associated article will appear early next month. Protests, war and little hope for peace in the Middle East – that is my bitter conclusion of 2023.
