While much of Israel is at a standstill due to the contact barrage of rockets and missiles coming out of the Gaza Strip from Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, the world of blue-and-white sports must go on.

With that, many foreign born players in both the soccer and basketball leagues have fled the country for the safety of the own homes and to be with their families during this trying time. Many imports called for the cancelation of the basketball season due to the violence, but that was not in the cards after the league made it through the end of last season despite the overwhelming challenges that COVID-19 presented. On top of that, there was no way the league would in essence capitulate to the terrorist organizations.

In Israel, life must go on no matter what.

While the Israel soccer league has had to continue to postpone its matches and has had to push them off, the league isn’t totally reliant on foreign players. Each team have no more than half a dozen imports and most squads are large enough with local players to take their spots should some depart the Holy Land.

That was the case with many of the Maccabi Tel Aviv players including Aleksandr Pesic, Enric Saborit and Andre Geraldes who have all left Israel. Some say they will come back should there be a ceasefire, but even that looks very uncertain should there be a calm in the fighting.

Obviously, the loss of the above players will hurt the yellow-and-blue when they still have to play league games as they sit 4 points out of first place with there matches to go with Maccabi Haifa in first. But they also have to face the Greens in the State Cup semifinals in a game that has been rescheduled a number of times and is now slated for this coming Thursday evening.

However, while the soccer league can easily substitute foreigners should more leave due to the depth of the squads, that is not the case with the Israel basketball league that relies heavily of imports.

Each basketball team has roughly 12 players on their roster and at least a third of those are foreign born, primarily from the United States. In some cases teams may have more than four foreigners and while they may have 12 players on their roster the last few slots are players that have rarely played all season long or are youngsters from their youth departments. This could leave some squads very, very thin as we head into the twilight of the league’s season with only a few regular season games remaining along with the playoffs.

Many American born players posted a notice all over social media networks calling on the league to cancel the balance of the season. In fact, some have already departed the country while others are heavily considering to do so.

Hapoel Jerusalem have already lost four foreigners in captain Tashawn Thomas, Stanton Kidd, Ray McCallum and Malcolm Hill, Maccabi Rishon Le’Zion have waved goodbye to Jeremy Pargo while Darryl Monroe and Jamil Wilson are supposed to leave soon, Hapoel, Beer Sheva’s Eric Griffin flew out as well, Josh Nebo from Hapoel Eilat is said to be heading home and Terrell Parks from Bnei Herzliya has already left Israel.

In order to attempt to have a proper end to the season, the league had to work fast to make the necessary adjustments in odder to do its best in light of the constantly changing developments. An easy task it was not.

Firstly, with so many critical players leaving, the relegation playoffs would potentially be an issue as two teams were supposed to go down to the second division. One club, Nahariya has already been officially demoted while Bnei Herzliya and Maccabi Haifa were battling to avoid relegation. As of now the league has decided that only Nahariya would head to the Leumit League and next season there would be 14 teams instead of 13 clubs playing. That may still change as there is talk that the teams want to revisit the issue of one or two teams being relegated but the decision makes sense not to punish a second team at this point.

In order for the teams to play out the season uninterrupted by the air raid sirens going off in the Tel Aviv greater area as well as close to the Gaza Strip, the league has approved playing out the season in Eilat in a bubble with three games being played a day beginning on Thursday May 20th in the Red Sea City.

Some teams including Hapoel Beer Sheva have already made their way down south to the oasis in order to get back into the swing of things while Nes Ziona sent their foreign players up north to get away from the constant rocket barrage. Should there be a ceasefire, the league will then have the games played in the clubs home arenas.

To answer the roster needs of some of the teams who lost foreign players that flew back to the United States, teams are allowed to sign new players either imports or Israelis in their place up until the playoffs. That allows a club like Jerusalem the chance to help fill their squad with some players from the second division who are not currently playing.

All in all, while the basketball league has its hands full and will continue to have its hands full in a situation that is far, far from ideal, they acted prudently to ensure that the season will end on the court of play as the show must go on.