About a week after Israel’s last 20 living hostages were released from Gaza, I was at a wedding near Jerusalem watching the chuppah ceremony when some jarring news flashed across guests’ phones. Though the euphoria of the hostage release day had passed, the mood in Israel was still buoyant, pregnant with hope that perhaps the country’s longest war was nearing its end despite the fragility of the United States-brokered ceasefire with Hamas.

Under the chuppah, the groom’s sister noted the circumstances and voiced a prayer for healing for the war’s wounded and for the safety and success of Israel’s soldiers. The bride’s brother, who emceed the ceremony, had spent several months of the war in combat in Gaza.

As the nuptial blessings were being recited, murmurs rippled through the crowd. The Israel Defense Forces had just issued a bulletin announcing the deaths of two soldiers in Gaza. Both were from Modiin—the hometown city of the bride and groom and a large portion of the guests, including me. One of the dead was from my neighborhood, and many of the wedding guests knew his family.

This study in contrasts—celebration and tragedy coinciding, two young people flush with excitement about their future together while calamity struck two of their neighbors, ages 26 and 21—encapsulated in a single moment the complexity of life in Israel as it seeks to move beyond the Gaza war.

On the one hand, Israelis are trying to find their way back to normal after two years of heavy rocket fire, fighting in Gaza, wars in Lebanon and with Iran as well as the devastating Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, that triggered a prolonged hostage crisis. On the other hand, Israel isn’t the same nation it was before the war, and it’s not clear what the new normal will be.

The war’s human toll leaves Israel a scarred nation. The war killed about 1,900 Israelis, including nearly 1,200 on October 7, and left at least 945 Israeli soldiers severely wounded and 1,557 others moderately wounded. Many have lost limbs, suffered traumatic brain injuries or will face significant lifelong medical problems. The rehabilitation wards at Israeli hospitals lack sufficient space to meet all the needs. (This urgent situation prompted the early opening of the Gandel Rehabilitation Center at Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus, which has treated 2,050 patients since its opening in January 2024—including 365 war-related patients, 91 percent of whom are IDF soldiers and security personnel.)

Then there’s the war’s immense psychological toll. Millions of Israelis are struggling with grief, trauma and mental health troubles, with those worst afflicted including those grieving the loss of loved ones, the wounded, former hostages and their families, displaced residents whose homes were destroyed and traumatized survivors.

Multiple survivors of the Nova music festival massacre on October 7 have committed suicide, one shortly before the release of the remaining living hostages.

An estimated 580,000 Israelis are suffering from at least one severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom as a direct result of the war, according to an Israeli State Comptroller’s report earlier this year, and up to 3 million adults may be suffering from other forms of war-related stress disorders, depression or anxiety.

Israeli media is filled with reports of IDF soldiers returning hollow-eyed after long deployments, their family members lamenting their altered states. The longer the deployments, the heavier the toll on mental health, relationships, livelihoods and the ability to reintegrate into civilian life.

More than one-third of wives of reserve soldiers deployed up to 50 days reported experiencing marital troubles, according to a survey by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, with the number rising to 57 percent among those whose spouses served for at least 200 days. In 2024, the divorce rate jumped 6.5 percent, according to the Israeli Rabbinate, which oversees all Jewish divorces in the country. Over half of the spouses in the survey also cited a negative turn in their children’s mental health due to their fathers’ deployments.

The stress shows up everywhere in daily life. Road rage is higher; traffic fatalities in 2025 are on pace to be Israel’s highest in 18 years, according to the National Road Safety Authority. Meanwhile, there’s hardly a person in the country whose heart doesn’t race when they hear the sound of a motorcycle revving, which echoes the ominous sound of an air-raid siren.

Repairing the infrastructure damage wrought by the war may be easier, but that, too, will take time.

Over 90 percent of the residents of southern Israel who were evacuated from their homes near Gaza during the war have returned, joined by some 2,500 newcomers from around the country, according to the government agency responsible for the area’s rehabilitation. But large swaths of the communities hardest hit by Hamas’s destruction remain uninhabitable. Most of the surviving residents of Kibbutzim Be’eri, Kfar Aza, Nahal Oz and Nir Oz are still living elsewhere, with the government estimating they won’t be able to move back until sometime next year. For them, the trauma is ongoing.

Recovery is also far off in northern Israel, which endured a year of attacks by Hezbollah following October 7—until Israel crippled the terror group’s command and control with an offensive that included the ingenious beeper and walkie talkie attacks and an IDF ground invasion. Destroyed neighborhoods in Metula and Manara have yet to be rebuilt; some evacuees who left for central Israel during the war don’t plan to return; and the area’s economy—which relies heavily on tourism—has yet to rebound.

On the environmental front, devastation and damage to agricultural infrastructure in both Israel’s North and South is still widespread.

Despite all these challenges, Israel has much weighing in its favor. The war demonstrated that the country’s prewar social divisions were not deep enough to prevent closing ranks against a common enemy. Israelis showed both themselves and their foes that they are resilient, resourceful and robust.

While the war upended life for millions in myriad ways, the conflicts with Iran and Hezbollah ended up killing far fewer Israelis and destroying far less infrastructure than military experts had forecast in their scenario planning. Moreover, Israel’s overwhelming victories against Hezbollah and Iran altered the balance of power in the region and have opened up new opportunities that may yet reshape the Middle East—including, possibly, Israel’s relationships with Syria and Saudi Arabia. Israel’s international reputation may be battered, but its most important ally, the United States, remains steadfastly behind it.

There remains much uncertainty about the future, and there’s much work to be done. But one thing is clear: Israelis are adept at meeting challenges. As Theodor Herzl famously said, “If you will it, it is no dream.”

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Uriel Heilman is a journalist living in Israel