I cannot recall a more deceiving reality in Israel. On the face of it, life goes on as usual. Yet it takes place in the shadow of war that dictates to Israelis a different way of life — one that is tense and fraught with dangers. The war in Gaza is about to enter its fourth week, extending beyond the limited time Israelis allot to wars. They have gotten used to short wars. Their two biggest wars — the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War — during which Israel was pitted against the entire Arab world, took less time.

Although this is a limited war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, it has cornered Israel into a situation of stress, which is playing tricks on many Israelis who sway between normality and anti-normality. Take last weekend as an example: July 25 kicked off with sirens that paralyzed most of Israel’s cities. The streets emptied and many businesses closed their doors before the start of the Sabbath. During the evening hours, negotiations about a cease-fire between the two sides were held, culminating in a one-day humanitarian lull. The following Saturday morning, many Israelis ventured out of their homes to make the best of the hoped-for respite.

Restaurants opened their doors and thousands of patrons lined up to enjoy a day of quiet. The intercity roads, which had been abandoned for fear of rockets, were packed with vehicles. Many people toured the north of the country, and for the first time since the start of the fighting, the highway leading from Israel’s center to the north was jammed with cars. The Tel Aviv port, which had been deserted because of the fighting, was bursting at the seams. The restaurants along Tel-Aviv’s esplanade opened their doors to accommodate thousands of people. Bathers returned to the beaches, and in Jaffa’s port, the many shops that had been closed reopened for business.

The lull instilled a sense of normality in these crazy times. Empty public swimming pools became crammed with hundreds of kids who could not go in the water since the fighting began. “What a pleasure,” I was told by the guard at the entrance to the Goldstein-Goren public swimming pool in Tel-Aviv’s Shapira neighborhood. “I’m almost crying from emotion when I see so many kids happy to return to the pool. It was empty this whole past month. There was only water in the pool, no kids. It hurts me when they are locked up at home and the pool stays empty.”