Oren Pesso, a Tel Aviv performance artist and the frontman of the avant-garde musical group Jilber and the Cats, opened his performance on Friday at HaTachana Park in Tel Aviv with a difficult question.

“Do you want the heat or the war? You have to pick one,” he called out to the crowd, before beginning to sing alongside his bandmate daughter, both of them wearing cat ears as part of their regular costumes.

Israel is notching its highest temperatures of the summer, with the mercury reaching 112 degrees in Tel Aviv earlier this week. At the same time, hostilities between the United States and Iran have been heating up and, after several weeks in which Iran has targeted multiple other Middle East countries, the war could soon reach Israel once again.

In anticipation of potential strikes, several cities have reopened their municipal bomb shelters, which have been closed since shortly after the US-brokered ceasefire on June 17. So far the Home Front Command, which tells civilians how to stay safe in moments of crisis, has not issued any specific new instructions.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday he was traveling to the United States on Monday ahead of a meeting with President Donald Trump, leading to speculation that the threat of an Iran strike was receding.

The United States and Iran resumed their conflict two weeks ago. The US Central Command completed its 13th consecutive night of strikes on Iran overnight Thursday, and Iran retaliated Friday morning, launching drones at US military targets in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.

Both Iran and the United States have reasons to keep Israel out, even as Israeli officials emphasize that they do not think the war curbed the Iranian nuclear threat. Iran knows that targeting Israel would escalate the conflict, andTrump is trying to sustain his Iran campaign amid dwindling public support for Israel.

For Israelis, the situation has yielded a state of suspended animation, akin to the eve of the war in February.

Now, Tehran has announced that if the United States expands its strikes on the country, it will retaliate against Israel. With additional American strikes expected, and a likely Iranian response designed to exact a higher price for each round of tit-for-tat escalation, Israeli analysts and officials are increasingly speculating that Israel will be drawn back into the........

© The Times of Israel