Josh Jury, 17, a senior at Homewood-Flossmoor High School, went to sleep Friday night in Jerusalem after a night of celebrating the Jewish holiday Simhat Torah and woke up Saturday to the sound of alarms.
Jury, who is scheduled to be in Israel through December for a semester aboard program, said he was startled awake at 8:30 a.m. Saturday to the sound of a siren. He asked his roommate what he thought the sound was. His roommate, still half asleep, told him it was probably a loud ambulance.
“I’d never heard something like it before,” Jury said. “A few minutes later, there were counselors banging on our doors telling us we had to run down to the bomb shelter. It felt really unreal. My reality was changed in seconds.”
Hamas militants stormed through the blockaded Gaza Strip Saturday, initiating a surprise land and air attack on Israel. Israel launched airstrikes in Gaza, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying the country is now at war.
Jury said he and the other students, some wrapped in towels after jumping out of the shower, left the bomb shelter after 10 minutes of silence outside. Twenty minutes later another siren went off, so the students ran back into the bomb shelter, he said.
Sirens went off eight times Saturday, he said, which required them to run down the stairs from the third floor of the building and another five flights of stairs into the bomb shelter.
“It was extremely chaotic. It was really overwhelming,” Jury said.
Jury arrived to Israel Aug. 22 as a student at Heller High, which is a semester-long, fully accredited high school educational experience for Jewish sophomores, juniors and seniors to learn in Israel, according to the program website.
Students in the program attend and live on the Alexander Muss High School campus in Hod HaSharon, which is located outside of Tel Aviv, Jury said. To celebrate the Jewish holiday, Jury said the students took a bus to Jerusalem and had planned to stay until Sunday.
On Friday night, Jury said he had a wonderful time eating, singing and dancing during the celebrations.
“I texted my mom that night telling her it was one of the highlights of the trip for me and it made me actually want to consider living here when I’m older,” Jury said.
Saturday was supposed to be a day of rest, Jury said, with more celebrations scheduled in the evening. But by Saturday night, Jury said he and his classmates were bused back to the campus.
Once on campus, Jury said the students were eating pizza for dinner when they heard the sounds of Israel’s defense system blocking a missile a few miles away.
“It sounded like thunder and the ground was shaking below us. It was sort of like this dystopian moment,” Jury said. “We hadn’t really seen or experienced it until that moment, like what was actually happening around us, but then it really felt close to home.”
Jury said the students were leaving a schoolwide meeting Monday when their phones alerted them about missiles getting closer to their location.
“We started to head in the direction of the bomb shelter and then we heard a missile get intercepted. It was extremely loud and everyone started panicking and running,” he said. “Then the sirens came back on. We stayed in the shelter for about 10 minutes again. It was really scary.”
The majority of classes have been canceled, Jury said, and the students have focused on helping with humanitarian efforts. They packed more than 1,500 bags with toiletries, snacks and notes of support for displaced families, he said
The students have attended history class to learn about modern history between Palestine and Israel, he said.
Jury said his biggest takeaway from the lesson is that it is a complicated issue.
“At the end of the day, there’s a lot of innocent Israelis and innocent Palestinians who are being killed,” Jury said. “You have to differentiate the terrorist group Hamas with the Palestinians who are in Gaza.”
Jury said school officials are trying to find flights home for students, the majority of whom live in the United States. It would be difficult for him to leave, Jury said, because he’s been enjoying his semester in Israel.
“Even though we’re in the middle of a war, this feels like my home. It’s really hard to leave,” Jury said. “Everything is up in the air.”
