The Empty Towers of Tel Aviv and the Bombed-Out Ruins of Gaza

Tel Aviv’s skyline keeps rising, but its apartments are sitting empty. In 2025, developers like MyTown—boasting twelve projects in the city—have failed to sell even a single unit. Across Israel, a record 80,000 unsold homes weigh on the market, with nearly 10,000 just in Tel Aviv. Prices have dropped 8% in a year, yet they remain at 15 times the national salary, so the middle class has long been priced out. The “Start-Up Nation” is turning into the “Shut-Out Nation.”

But this isn’t just a real estate crisis—it’s a mirror of Israel’s moral collapse. While apartments gather dust, Netanyahu’s war machine gathers momentum. Billions that could have made homes affordable are poured into F-16s, surveillance drones, and bombs that reduce homes in Gaza to rubble and sand. What irony: in Tel Aviv, towers rise but stand empty; in Gaza, homes fall and leave entire families entombed.

And no one dares stop it. The U.S. Congress nods along, Europe hides behind hollow condemnations, and Arab states wring their hands while continuing quiet trade. Netanyahu knows he can escalate indefinitely: flatten Gaza, strike in Tunisia’s waters, launch drones into Qatar—because no “statesman” dares to pull the plug . International law? Reduced to hashtags. Humanitarian principles? Traded away for weapons contracts.

The future is not hard to predict. As more bombs fall, more Israelis will pack their bags. Already in 2024, 82,000 left while only 24,000 returned, a silent exodus that grows louder with every escalation. Cyprus and Greece are filling with Israelis who want the sun of the Levant without the shadow of a regime drunk on messianic zeal.

Tel Aviv’s empty towers are monuments—not to prosperity, but to the bankruptcy of a state that chose militarism over survival. Netanyahu’s Israel is building higher and higher walls while digging itself into a deeper and deeper ditch. The world watches, the bombs fall, the apartments remain unsold, and history sharpens its pen.

One day, those gleaming towers may be remembered not as homes, but as gravestones of a nation that mistook devastation for defense, and war crimes for survival.

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