Disruption in start-up nation.

From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Lily Dramalli.

Thousands of Israelis and Palestinians have lost their lives since Hamas gunmen staged their

surprise raid on October 7th.

In the wake of the attack, Israel's defense forces have called up more than 350,000

reservists, about 4% of its population.

The country's booming tech industry could be affected more than most, given that so many

younger Israelis work in the sector.

Fast company contributing writer Izzy Lapowski recently interviewed several of them, including

an Israeli tech lawyer named Yitzi Hammer.

On October 7th, he was like a lot of people getting ready to celebrate the end of the Jewish

high holidays and celebrate Sabbath.

He woke up to what sounded like bombs going off and it wasn't until he was on his way to

synagogue that he realized that Hamas had invaded and obviously returned home.

He spent some of that day in his home with his children, sheltering in a bomb shelter.

By Sunday, the very next day, because he's a reservist with the Israeli defense forces,

he was headed about an hour south to a military base on the Gaza border where he's now spending

12 hours a day working out of a fortified caravan to serve as a legal advisor to the Israeli defense

forces.

His day job is actually as a lawyer as well, but he usually works in the tech sector working with

emerging companies in the tech sector in Israel.

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