At Israel's cafes and bars, life may seem normal. But the war has cast a pall nationwide

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — At a busy Tel Aviv entertainment district, diners spill into outdoor seating and clink glasses as music fills the air. There’s laughter, there’s life. But all around the patrons, staring down from lampposts and shop windows, are pictures of hostages held in Gaza, stark reminders that Israel is at war and forever scarred by the deadliest attack in its history.

As Israel's war with Hamas reaches its one-year mark, it can seem on the surface that much of life in the country has returned to normal. But with many still reeling from Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, hostages remaining in captivity and a new front of warwith Hezbollah in the north, many Israelis feel depressed, despondent and angry as the war stretches into its second year.

Uncertainty over the future has cast a pall over virtually every part of daily life, even as people try to maintain a sense of normalcy.

“The conversation about the situation is always there," said activist Zeev Engelmayer, whose daily postcard project featuring illustrations of hostages or Israel's new reality has become a fixture at anti-war protests. "Even those who are sitting in coffee shops, they’re talking about it, in every single situation I see it. It’s impossible to get away from it. It has entered into every vibration of our life.”

Hamas' attack in which some 1,200 people were killed and 250 kidnapped shattered Israelis’ sense of security and stability in their homeland.

Many have been rattled by the war's evolution. Nearly 100 hostages remain in Gaza, with less than 70 believed to be alive. Israelis have experienced attacks — missiles from Iran and Hezbollah, explosive drones from Yemen, fatal shootings and stabbings — as the region braces for further escalation.

They've watched as Israel is accused of committing war crimes and genocide in Gaza and becomes increasingly isolated internationally.

“I’m almost 80 — we grew up in this country with a feeling that we have short wars, and we win them quickly,” said Israeli historian Tom Segev, who described new feelings of utter hopelessness. “We’re not used to a long war.”

Israelis have long harbored a sense that their country, born of the Holocaust's ashes and surviving a panoply of regional threats, is a success story, Segev said. They've strived, he added, for a normality akin to that of European and North American people, though their reality for decades has been anything but.

“I think that history is going backward,” he said of the past year. “Everything we have achieved on our way to becoming a normal state isn’t happening.”

Reminders are everywhere. At a Hebrew University graduation in Jerusalem, a large yellow ribbon was placed in front of the stage. A graduate who didn't attend because his brother was killed in Gaza the previous day was honored.

Israel's longstanding internal divisions briefly eased in the aftermath of Hamas’ attack, but have only intensified since. Weekly protests calling for a cease-fire deal that would free hostages are attended mostly by secular Jewish Israelis who oppose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government.

According to a September poll by Jerusalem-based think tank Israel Democracy Institute, 61 percent of right-wing Jewish Israelis — Netanyahu's base — support the war continuing.

Occupied with their own trauma, most Israelis paid scant attention to the ongoing destruction in Gaza, even as the Health Ministry there put the Palestinian death toll at more than 41,000. Israeli media have reported little on the devastation. Israelis calling for a cease-fire are driven overwhelmingly by the hostages' plight.

Many Israelis are furious at leaders and the military for not preventing Hamas’ attack. Tens of thousands of people are expected at an alternative ceremony marking one year since then, as a statement against the government's official commemoration. The state ceremony is being prerecorded without a live audience, in part because of fears of heckling and disruptions.

“The thing we lost on Oct. 7 — and we haven’t gotten it back — is our feeling of security,” Muli Segev, executive producer of "Eretz Nehederet," a popular sketch comedy show. “Despite everything, we have been able to create a life here that’s pretty open and Western.

"Especially in Tel Aviv, we go about our lives, and we don’t think about the fact that our lives are really just pauses between wars and between explosions of violence."

In the war's early months, the show's sketches were gentler, focusing on what united Israeli society, such as the massive civilian volunteer response. Over time, they featured more pointed satire, including a reimagining of negotiations if the hostages were Israeli politicians' children — released in less than two hours.

Parts of life have rebounded — beaches full of people, bustling cafes, concerts and sports back on schedules. But residents also check for the nearest bomb shelter, deal with school cancellations when violence flares up, and avoid domestic travel hubs that are now off-limits. Heartbreaking news arrives regularly, including the deaths of six hostages in August.

“It’s a nightmare; we’re just getting used to it,” said Maya Brandwine, a 33-year-old graphic designer who witnessed the Jaffa shooting that killed seven on Tuesday. “I have so little hope. I’m sure the situation will only get worse.”

Dror Rotches, a 47-year-old graphic designer, said from a Tel Aviv coffee shop: “We try to go out when we can, meet friends and try to forget for a few hours. Then we go home and keep slogging through the mud.”

Others simply can't return home. More than 60,000 from Israel's northern border with Lebanon are displaced. Thousands from the southern towns ransacked Oct. 7 are in temporary housing. Tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are serving their second or third tour of duty, straining their families and jobs.

“As the war goes on and on and we can’t see the end, there’s also a type of very large worry over the future, and, for some, if there is even a future here,” Muli Segev said.

Cafe Otef seems like any of Tel Aviv's ubiquitous coffee shops: Patrons laugh and sip specialty coffee beside a playground; light rock music plays. But next to the sandwiches and cakes are chocolates made from the recipes of Dvir Karp, who was killed in the Oct. 7 attack, and cheeses from Kibbutz Be’eri, where more than 100 died and 30 were taken hostage. Totes and T-shirts for sale declare “We shall thrive again.”

The cafe, named for the region next to the Gaza border, is run by residents of Re'im, one of the kibbutzes struck. It's the second shop in the new chain, each aiming to support people of a southern Israeli town where lives were upended.

“The war still continues for almost a year, and I feel that if we won’t live, we will die,” said Reut Karp, cafe owner and Dvir's ex-wife. She lives with most of her kibbutz in temporary housing nearby.

The cafe gives her purpose as her community deals with trauma and the uncertainty of returning home. While it's strange to see people flowing through the doors, going about life as normal, she and the staff have found comfort in the routine.

“We must take ourselves out of bed and continue to live and to work and to have the hope," Karp said. "Because without this hope, we don’t have anything.”

People at the beach in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

People on the beach pass by a sign calling for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by Hamas for nearly a year, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

A worker cleans the floor at an exhibition by Israeli graffiti artist Benzi Brofman that displays portraits of the victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, in Jerusalem, Sunday, Sept.29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Women walk past graffiti calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip for nearly a year, in the Carmel market Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

People walk next to the market stand belonging to Elkana Bohbot, who was kidnapped from the Nova festival and has not been released from Gaza in the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sept. 27, 2024.(AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

People listen to Israeli singer Yoni Bloch, who has written new songs about the current war, in concert at a record store in Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

An off-duty Israeli soldier carrying her M-16 rifle walks down the street in Tel Aviv Israel, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Young people chat in the rear of a car in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

A man stands at the entrance to his empty souvenir shop in the Carmel market in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

People travel by light rail in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Sept.18, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

A soldier and a woman wait at a bus stop next to a bomb shelter in the town of Sderot, southern Israel, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

An off-duty Israeli soldier carrying his M-16 rifle walks past posters calling for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip, in Jerusalem, Friday, Sept.13, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

A couple rides a bicycle near a yellow ribbon sign calling for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group for nearly a year, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Signs calling for the return of hostages held captive by Hamas in Gaza are displayed during a match of the Hapoel Jerusalem soccer team in Jerusalem on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Signs calling for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip are plastered on trees in Tel Aviv's beach, Israel, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

People sit in a bar near a sign calling for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group for nearly a year, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

People pass by a sign calling for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by Hamas for nearly a year, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah would stop mailing ballots to all voters automatically under a bill sent to its Republican governor as the state’s 2025 legislative session wrapped up on Friday.

The Republican-controlled Legislature approved a proposal requiring voters to opt in to receive their ballots in the mail. Voters who want to return their ballots by mail or to a drop box would need to write the last four digits of their driver's license, state ID or Social Security number on the ballot return envelope. And starting in 2029, residents who vote in person would need to show a valid ID.

If Gov. Spencer Cox signs the bill into law, it would drastically change the voting system in one of just eight states — and the only led by Republicans — that allows all elections to be conducted by mail without a need to opt in.

“I'm very supportive of it. I think it's a brilliant bill,” Cox told reporters Friday night. “Lots of people wrongly believe that we have mass fraud in our elections, and it's just not true, but we need to restore trust to them as well.”

The governor has repeatedly expressed confidence in the state’s election security but said he supports changing the system so that votes can be tallied faster. Utah voters lose trust in elections when it takes weeks to count ballots, leaving time for bad actors to spread the lie that something nefarious is happening, Cox said.

Currently, ballots that are postmarked by the day before Election Day can be counted within the following two weeks. The proposal awaiting Cox's signature would move up the deadline, requiring all ballots to be in the county clerk’s possession by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

Lawmakers pointed to the same legislative audits to make cases for and against the bill. The recent audits found no evidence of widespread fraud in Utah's elections but identified some delays in removing deceased residents from voter rolls. Democrats said the changes were unnecessary and would make voting more difficult, while many Republicans said the voter roll issues indicated a need for new security measures.

“We have high confidence in vote by mail," said Sen. Mike McKell, one of the top Republicans in the chamber. "But we also have concerns with security, and what we’re trying to balance in this bill is how do we enhance security and at the same time make voting easy?”

Five Republicans joined all Democrats in opposing the bill, which passed with veto-proof margins in the House and fell one vote short of a veto-proof majority in the Senate. If Cox rejects the bill, which seems unlikely, Republican supporters would need to pull in one more senator to override his veto.

Democratic Sen. Nate Blouin said that by passing the bill, Republican lawmakers were feeding into “conspiracy thinking” around election security.

Republicans have sent their base mixed signals about mail-in voting since President Donald Trump falsely claimed the system was plagued with fraud to explain away his 2020 election loss. Trump continued to sow distrust even as his campaign team and the Republican National Committee began encouraging Republicans to vote by mail in the 2024 race to avoid giving Democrats an edge.

The vast majority of Utah residents mail in their ballots or deposit them in drop boxes.

Earlier versions of the bill received strong pushback from Utah’s county clerks, who have since withdrawn their opposition. But some say they have lingering concerns that the changes will make elections less secure.

The measure directs clerks to prioritize checking ID numbers over the current practice of matching signatures to those on file. Weber County Clerk Ricky Hatch warned that could lead to a rise in voter fraud because he said it's easier to get ahold of someone's state ID number than it is to forge their signature.

“It is absolutely not a perfect bill, and that's why the clerks didn't support it. We simply removed our opposition,” Hatch told The Associated Press. “A big reason why we did that is because we received assurances from sponsors that they would continue to work with us to fix the remaining issues we have to help make sure voters aren't hurt.”

Tribal IDs would also be accepted under the version of the bill that cleared the Legislature, alleviating concerns that it would disenfranchise Native American voters in the last state that gave them access to the ballot box.

Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, left, and Gov. Spencer Cox speak to reporters about a bill changing the state's mail-in voting system on the final day of the state's legislative session, Friday, March 7, 2025, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum)

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, left, and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson speak to reporters about a bill changing the state's mail-in voting system on the final day of the state's legislative session, Friday, March 7, 2025, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum)

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox speaks to reporters about a bill changing the state's mail-in voting system on the final day of the state's legislative session, Friday, March 7, 2025, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum)

FILE - The Utah State Capitol is shown on March 3, 2023, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)