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Since Saturday, Israel has faced a nightmare with a missile attack from Hamas. The invasion led to a halt in all sports events, allowing foreign players to leave. Despite the chaos, EuroCup’s Hapoel Shlomo Tel Aviv’s foreign players, including John Holland, remain distressed in Israel.

“I am in Israel right now. They just started some bombings, and it is pretty crazy,” he said. “We had a bunch of shelter alerts. If you look at the streets, it is pretty empty right now except for a few people. But yeah, you can hear the bombs, you can feel the bombs a little bit, some of them. … It is pretty spooky, I am not gonna lie.”

Thinking back on his previous involvement in war, Holland noted that this marked his second instance, as he had been in Russia with UNICS Kazan during the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“This is the second war I have been in. I was in Russia when they invaded Ukraine, but that was a bit different because you don’t really feel it, other than the price of ruble going down and stuff like that. You didn’t really feel the bombs like here,” Holland underlined.

“To say the least, it has been an interesting day,” he continued. “We will see about tomorrow [October 8]. I don’t believe we will have practice tomorrow, but I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I am just documenting it just in case, you know. I feel relatively safe. That’s life.”