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Destiny Littleton was supposed to be on a flight from Israel back to the United States on Tuesday. That plan has now gone up in smoke, as he navigates bomb shelters in Jerusalem during Iran’s counterattack. He has no idea when he will return 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. He called it an “incredible” experience before Saturday. But now he said he wouldn’t come to Israel if he 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 January 9, 2022. (John Byrum/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“It’s scary. And it’s hard not to think about ‘what if’.” You really can’t. “We’re going to have to pray and hope that everything is okay and that we can get out safely,” Littleton told Pak Gazette Digital.
Earlier on Sunday, an Iranian missile hit a location just 30 minutes from Littleton, killing eight people.
“It’s my reality right now. It’s a war zone. Right now it’s pretty routine, you sit, you wait for an alert on your phone, you wait for a siren, you shelter in place, you wait for everything to be clear, and you just do it again, and you do it again, and you do it again,” he said.
“We are in a country that is unfortunately used to this type of activity, so they are normalized, so it is unfortunate that they are normalized, but we are not, so this scares us.”
On Saturday, Littleton posted a video on Instagram of herself, her teammates and locals screaming in fear as drones flew over an apartment building they were in, while explosions were seen in the distance.
In previous videos, he documented his experience fleeing to a bomb shelter while sirens blared in the background, and then moving to a new location after the first shelter he went to felt “uncomfortable.”
He has had difficulty even receiving news updates on the situation, as the only news he has been able to access has been broadcast in Hebrew. He also distrusts some of the information that is disseminated and describes it as “propaganda.”
Littleton hopes this experience will affect his psyche in the future.
“Right now I can’t tell you the full effect this is going to have on me. But I do know that with these 48-plus hours of being in an active war zone, even the little noises make you jump,” he said. “So there will be some trauma there.”
He doesn’t expect to return to Israel to play basketball in the future. Littleton said he researched the potential risks that moving to Israel would have entailed and informed himself about the country’s conflicts with neighboring nations. But she didn’t expect it to reach this level.
“I had to make a decision, and the decision came after a lot of research,” he said. “I had friends who were already here and I was asking them…so I got a lot of positive feedback from that, and ultimately I made the decision to come here…It all comes down to risk, weighing the options, understanding the situation and whether it’s a current threat or not.”
Politically, Littleton has mixed feelings about his country and Israel’s decision to attack Iran and provoke the current conflict.
“The United States is trying to stop a regime that is terrible for the entire world; on the other hand, the United States is doing Israel’s bidding,” he said.
“My opinion is that I am against the period of war. I am against what war can do. And I don’t like how [President Donald Trump] “He made this decision on his own.”
Littleton is one of three prominent American basketball players trapped in the country during the Iranian counterattack.
Littleton, who won a national championship in South Carolina under coach Dawn Staley in 2022, and a gold medal for the United States at the 2017 FIBA 3×3 U18 World Cup, is there with WNBA veteran Tiffany Mitchell and former Phoenix Mercury forward Mikiah Herbert Harrigan.
Staley He said Saturday that the university is working to bring the three home.
“We are working on a plan to return home. Please pray that our loved ones return home safely as soon as possible!” Staley wrote in X.
Littleton said Staley has assured him that South Carolina authorities are “doing everything they can to get us home safely.”
“She really cares about her babies. We will always be her babies. And she is trying to be there for us from 7,000 miles away,” Littleton said. “Being the kind of person he is, he’s going to use his reach to make sure we can get home as safely 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 wouldn’t go to Israel in November if she had known this would happen, she is reflecting on the positive aspects of her experience there to stay “sane.”
“I had an amazing year this year,” he said. “I’ve opened a lot of doors for myself, so it’s definitely been a plus. I’ve been able to play the sport I love and experience another country. So there are positives, and with the situation that’s going on, being able to see all the positives will keep you sane.”
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