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Destiny Littleton was supposed to be on a flight from Israel back to the US on Tuesday. That plan is now up in smoke, as she navigates bomb shelters in Jerusalem during Iran’s counterstrike. She has no idea when she’ll be home.
The former NCAA and Team USA women’s basketball player moved to Israel in November to play for Hapoel Jerusalem in the country’s top women’s basketball division. She called it an “amazing” experience, before Saturday. But now, she said she would not come to Israel if she could do it all over again.
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South Carolina guard Destiny Littleton (11) plays during a women’s college basketball game between the Kentucky Wildcats and the South Carolina Gamecocks at Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, South Carolina, on Jan. 9, 2022. (John Byrum/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“It’s scary. And it’s hard not to take it to the ‘what ifs.’ You really can’t. We’re going to have to pray and hope everything will be okay and that we can leave safely,” Littleton told Fox News Digital.
Earlier on Sunday, an Iranian missile struck a location just 30 minutes away from Littleton, killing eight people.
“It’s my reality right now. It’s a war zone. Right now it’s pretty routine, you sit around, you wait for an alert on your phone, you wait for a siren, you go into a shelter in place, you wait for the all clear, and you just do it again, and do it again, and do it again,” she said.
“We’re in a country that is unfortunately used to this type of activity, so they’re normalized to it, so it’s unfortunate that they are normalized to it, but we aren’t, so this scares us.”
On Saturday, Littleton posted an Instagram video of her, teammates and locals screaming in fear as drones flew over an apartment building they were in, as explosions were seen going off in the distance.
In earlier videos, she documented her experience fleeing to a bomb shelter as sirens blared in the background, and then moving to a new location after the first shelter she went to felt “uncomfortable.”
She has struggled to even pick up on news updates on the situation, as the only news she’s been able to access has been broadcast in Hebrew. She also feels wary of some of the information being broadcast, labeling it “propaganda.”
Littleton expects this experience to impact her psyche moving forward.
“Right now I can’t tell you the full effect that this is going to have on me. But I do know that just with this 48+ hours of being in an active war zone, even the little noises you jump at,” she said. “So there is going to be some trauma there.”
She doesn’t expect to return to Israel to play basketball in the future. Littleton said she researched the potential risks that would have come with moving to Israel, and briefed herself on the country’s conflicts with neighboring nations. But she did not expect it to reach this level.
“I had to make a decision, and the decision came with a lot of research,” she said. “I had friends who were already here, and I was asking them… so I got a lot of positive feedback from that, and I ultimately made the decision to come here… It just comes down to risk, weighing the options, understanding the situation and if it’s a current threat or not.”
Politically, Littleton has mixed feelings about her country and Israel’s decision to strike Iran and ignite the current conflict.
“The US is trying to stop a regime that’s terrible for the entire world, on the other hand it’s the US is doing Israel’s bidding,” she said.
“My opinion is that I’m against the war period. I’m against what war can do. And I don’t like how [President Donald Trump] made this decision on his own.”
Littleton is one of three prominent American women’s basketball players trapped in the country during the Iranian counterstrike.
Littleton, who won a national championship at South Carolina under coach Dawn Staley in 2022, and a gold medal for the U.S. in the 2017 FIBA 3×3 U18 World Cup, is there with WNBA veteran Tiffany Mitchell and former Phoenix Mercury forward Mikiah Herbert Harrigan.
Staley said Saturday that the university is working to bring all three home.
“We are working on a plan to get home. Let us pray for our loved ones to return home safely asap!” Staley wrote on X.
Littleton said Staley has assured her that figures at South Carolina are “doing everything they can to get us home safe.”
“She really cares about her babies. We’ll forever be her babies. And she’s trying to be there for us from 7,000 miles away,” Littleton said. “As the type of person she is, she is going to use her reach to make sure that we can get home as safe as possible. So it’s been a lot of checking in and making sure we’re okay.”
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While Littleton said she would not go to Israel back in November had she known this would happen, she is reflecting on the positives of her experience there to stay “sane.”
“I had an amazing year this year,” she said. “I’ve opened a lot of doors for myself so that’s definitely been a plus. I’ve gotten to play the game I love and experience another country. So there are positives, and with the situation that’s happen, being able to look at all the positives will kind of keep you sane.”
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