Former Team USA player regrets Israel move amid Iran missile attack

Destiny Littleton was supposed to be on a plane from Israel to return to the United States on Tuesday. That plan now went up in smoke as he navigated bomb shelters in Jerusalem during Iran’s counter-attack. He has no idea when he’ll come 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 league. He described it before Saturday as a “wonderful” experience. But now, he said, if he could do it over again, he wouldn’t come to Israel.

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“It’s scary. And it’s hard not to take it to ‘What if?’ You really can’t. We just have to pray and hope that everything will be okay and we can leave safely,” Littleton told Fox News Digital.

Early Sunday, an Iranian missile hit a spot just 30 minutes away from Littleton, killing eight people.

“This is my reality right now. This is a war zone. It’s pretty routine right now, you sit down, you wait for an alert on your phone, you wait for a siren, you go into a shelter, you wait for everything to clear and you do it again and you do it again and you do it again,” he said.

“Unfortunately, we’re in a country that’s used to this type of activity, so they’re normalizing it, so it’s unfortunate that they’re normalizing it, but we’re not, so that scares us.”

On Saturday, Littleton posted an Instagram video of himself, his 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, she had documented feeling “uncomfortable” about the experience of running into a bomb shelter while sirens blared in the background and moving to a new location after the first shelter she went to.

He even had difficulty getting updates on the situation, as the only news he could access was published in Hebrew. He is also wary of some of the information published, labeling it as “propaganda.”

Littleton expects this experience to impact his psyche going forward.

“I can’t fully describe the impact this will have on me right now. But I do know that even the little sounds you miss after being in an active war zone for more than 48 hours,” he said. “So there’s going to be some trauma there.”

He does not expect to return to Israel to play basketball in the future. Littleton said he researched the potential risks of moving to Israel and provided information about the country’s conflicts with neighboring countries. However, he did not expect it to reach this level.

“I had to make a decision, and that decision came with 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 and I finally made the decision to come here… It’s just about taking the risk, weighing the options, understanding the situation and figuring out if this is a current threat.”

Politically, Littleton has mixed feelings about his country and Israel’s decision to strike Iran, exacerbating the current conflict.

“On the one hand, the USA is trying to stop a regime that is terrible for the whole world, and on the other hand, it is carrying out Israel’s orders,” he said.

“My opinion is, I’m against wartime. I’m against what war can do. And I don’t like how it can be done. [President Donald Trump] “He made this decision on his own.”

Littleton is one of three prominent American women’s basketball players stranded in the country during Iran’s counterattack.

Littleton, who won a national title under coach Dawn Staley at South Carolina in 2022 and won gold for the United States at the 2017 FIBA ​​3×3 U18 World Cup, is there. WNBA veteran Tiffany Mitchell and former Phoenix Mercury forward Mikiah Herbert Harrigan.

Staley The university is working to bring all three home, he said Saturday.

“We are working on a plan to return home. Let’s pray for our loved ones to return home safely as soon as possible!” Staley wrote to X.

Littleton said Staley assured him that people in South Carolina were “doing everything they could to get us home safely.”

“She really cares about her babies. We will be her babies forever. And she tries to be there for us from 7,000 miles away,” Littleton said. “Being the type of person he is, he’ll use his access to make sure we get home as safely as possible. So, we did a lot of checking and making sure we were okay.”

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While Littleton says he wouldn’t have gone to Israel in November if he had known this would happen, he reflects on the positive aspects of his experience there to stay “sane.”

“I had a great year this year,” he said. “I’ve opened a lot of doors for myself and that’s definitely been a plus. I’ve had the chance to play the game that I love and experience another country. So there are positives as well, and in this case, being able to look at all the positives will kind of keep you sane.”

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