CINCINNATI — Inside Cafe Alma in Pleasant Ridge, owner Yair Richlar's mind was thousands of miles away in the land he and his wife called home for years: Israel.
Richlar called Israel home since moving there from Montreal, Canada at 5 years old before following his wife to Cincinnati, where she grew up. He said he's known what it was like living under the threat of rocket fire from Gaza for most of his life, but the large-scale invasion Hamas launched Saturday was unprecedented.
"It's living under constant terror, but something that has been an unfortunate reality for many years," he said. "This is beyond imaginable."
Richlar said many of his friends and family members still in Israel have been called into active military service, and some of his friends had already been killed.
"I guess we don't really have time to process," he said. "Not the dead, not even the hostages who are being taken right now, because we're at war and priorities are so different than if this was just another simple attack."
The Jewish Federation of Cincinnati said it has people on the ground in Israel providing support, and said it has been in contact with locals who are currently in Israel.
"This is a war on civilians," said Danielle V. Minson, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati. "This is a war on innocent people. Extremism is not tolerated."
The decades-long conflict in the Middle East has split many between Israelis claiming self-defense and the right to exist and Palestinians who worry they're being driven from lands that have ancestrally been theirs. The Gaza strip is only about 141 square miles.
"It would stretch roughly from Florence, Ky. to Mason, Ohio," said Nathan French, a professor at Miami University.
Tri-state resident Tala Ali said she still has family in the region around the West Bank who've dealt with Israeli Defense Forces.
"I've had cousins who've been rounded up, who've been shot at," Ali said.
She said she was in the U.S. because her Palestinian mother was displaced by Israeli settlements in 1967.
"Occupation is violent. Displacement is violent. Restricting water and electricity and movement is violent. With me to speak of what's happened in the last few days without speaking of that is very misleading and harmful," Ali said.
Ohio's Council on American Islamic Relations said it is standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people as CAIR-Ohio Executive Director Amina Barhumi called for an end to the deadly violence.
"The core issue that has led to this violence is really the decades-long illegal occupation, occupation of Palestinian land, and the denial of Palestinian human rights," Barhumi said.
For Richlar, one thing has remained crystal clear.
"Hamas is a terrorist organization," he said.
Richlar said his Israeli army unit was still on standby, and he was seriously considering returning if called.
"If I felt like the nation, the Jewish nation and the country of Israel was under real threat of existence, I'd go back in a heartbeat," said Richlar.
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