Updated October 25, 2026 at 10:48 AM EDT
JAFFA, Israel, and GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Kids wearing raspberry-colored rash guards carry surfboards on their heads as they wade into the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean during a morning surf camp on the beach in the Israeli port city of Jaffa.
Forty miles to the south, on the beach in Gaza City, a pair of Palestinian boys try to surf as well, but they're carrying a white refrigerator door scavenged from the rubble. The seawater is brown — the result of Israel bombing Gaza City's sewer system.
After more than three years of war, something as simple as a day at the beach illustrates how different daily life is on either side of the border that divides Israel from Gaza. High-rise hotels and apartments tower over the beaches in Tel Aviv where people play volleyball and lounge in plastic orange chairs beneath colorful umbrellas. People on the beach in Gaza City also shade themselves with umbrellas, but there are far more tents. Hundreds of thousands now live on the sand because most buildings are damaged or destroyed.
For all the differences between Gaza City and Jaffa, people in both cities are drawn to the water for the same reasons: to cool off, relax and try to find some peace amid a war with no end in sight.
Eman Shaheen, 24, sits in a café with friends overlooking the water in Gaza City. She was here more than a year ago when she survived an Israeli airstrike that hurled bodies into the water, turning it red.
"We view the sea as our salvation, that it will pull us out of the reality we are in," says Shaheen, an artist, as she sips coffee in the café, which has since been rebuilt.
Shaheen, who lost two brothers in the war, sees the sea as a symbolic escape from this blockaded territory.
"We are besieged, and all the people of Gaza say that this sea is a lifeline," she says, "so we keep staring at it as if it's a glimmer of hope, perhaps telling it, 'Take us, come save us.'"
Surfers' close call with an Iranian missile
The U.S. brokered a ceasefire in Gaza about a year ago, but more than 1,400 people have been killed there since. The Israeli military says it continues to target Hamas members plotting attacks on Israel, but Gaza's health ministry says the strikes have also killed hundreds of civilians.
If there were no war or Israeli blockade, it would take just an hour to drive from Gaza City to Jaffa. That's where Uri Liel works as a data analyst. He comes to the beach as often as he can to surf. Liel says most of the time life on the beach in Israel is safe, but not always.
When Liel, 41, was surfing down the coast earlier this year, a siren went off. He heard the "whoosh" of Israeli missiles trying to intercept Iranian missiles overhead. One Iranian missile got through and plunged into the water about 60 feet away, sending a geyser into the air three stories high.
Some people just kept surfing.
Hamas attacked Israel in 2023, which killed nearly 1,200 Israelis. Since then, Israel has engaged in multi-front wars, including trading missile strikes with Iran. So, when a missile hit near Liel in the water, he took it in stride.
"I was not feeling shocked, and then I started getting worried that maybe I should be shocked," says Liel, who texted his therapist later.
Little sympathy for the other side
A couple of hundred yards up the beach from where Liel is speaking, Miriam Cohen, 21, sits in the sand reading her phone in the shade of a footbridge. One of Cohen's cousins was a soldier and was recently killed in action.
Cohen comes to the beach twice a week to maintain some sense of normalcy. She says Israeli soldiers fight so people here can enjoy peace, security and scenes like this.
More than 74,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war in 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, but this doesn't get much attention in Israeli media. Cohen says when she thinks of the beach in Gaza, which is rare, she imagines it covered in blood. But she says she is not really thinking so much about Palestinian blood: She's imagining the blood of Israeli soldiers and those who died in the 2023 attack.
Cohen recognizes Gazans have suffered a lot.
"I think they're poor, unfortunate people. I think many of them may have found themselves in a situation they wouldn't have chosen, but there isn't much that can be done about it," she says. "Do I feel sorry for them? Not so much, not anymore."
On the beach to the south in Gaza City, no one expressed sympathy for Israelis either.
Batool Al-Draimlee sits on the sand as water washes over her feet. A year older than Cohen, she works as a content creator and has spent her entire life under the Israeli blockade.
Like almost every young person in Gaza, she has never been permitted to leave this densely packed strip of land, which is about the size of Chattanooga, Tenn., with 10 times the population.
"When thinking of Tel Aviv, I think of a completely different world that feels light years away, even though it's right next to us," says Al-Draimlee. "It's a place of normal daily routines [and] unlimited electricity in a place of simple freedom."
But back up north on the beach in Jaffa, Liel, the surfer, says appearances can be deceptive. Israel is about the size of New Jersey. Liel says it's not six degrees of separation between fellow Israelis and those who've lost their lives in the recent wars, but more like two or three.
"I think we're accumulating a lot of invisible weight," says Liel. "A lot of people are dealing with trauma."
But Liel also thinks about all the trauma in Gaza and how difficult life remains there more than a year into the nominal ceasefire. He feels some responsibility and a bit of guilt.
"I'm having fun on the beach," says Liel. "What are they having?"
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