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Destiny Littleton was supposed to be on a flight from Israel back to the United States on Tuesday. That plan is now up in smoke as she navigates bomb shelters in Jerusalem during Iran’s counterattack. She has no idea when she will 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 division. She called it an “amazing” experience before Saturday. But now she said she wouldn’t 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 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 take it as a ‘what if.’ You really can’t. We’re going to have to pray and hope that everything is going to be okay and that we can leave safely,” Littleton told Pakinomist Digital.
Earlier Sunday, an Iranian missile hit a site just 30 minutes away from Littleton, killing eight people.
“That’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 go into a shelter in place, you wait for everything to be 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’re normalized to it, but we’re not, 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 in the distance.
In previous videos, she documented her experience of fleeing to a shelter while sirens blared in the background, then moving to a new location after the first shelter she went to felt “uncomfortable.”
She has struggled to catch any news updates on the situation at all, as the only news she has 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 affect her psyche going 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 these 48+ hours of being in an active war zone, even the little sounds you jump at,” she said. “So there will be some trauma there.”
She does not expect to return to Israel to play basketball in the future. Littleton said she researched the potential risks involved in moving to Israel and informed herself 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 with a lot of research,” she said. “I had friends who were already here and I asked them… so I got a lot of positive feedback from it and I ultimately made the decision to come here… It just 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 ignite the current conflict.
“The United States is trying to stop a regime that is terrible for the whole world, on the other hand, it is the United States that is doing Israel’s bidding,” she said.
“My opinion is that I am against the period of war. I am against what war can do. And I do not 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 counterattack.
Littleton, who won a national championship at South Carolina under coach Dawn Staley in 2022 and a gold medal for the United States in the 2017 FIBA 3×3 U18 World Cup, is there 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’s pray for our loved ones to return home safely as soon as possible!” Staley signed X.
Littleton said Staley has assured her that people in South Carolina are “doing everything they can to get us home safely.”
“She really cares about her babies. We will forever be her babies. And she tries to be there for us from 7,000 miles away,” Littleton said. “Being the type of person she is, she wants to use her reach to make sure we 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 wouldn’t have gone to Israel back in November if she had known this would happen, she reflects on the positives of her experience there to stay “sane.”
“I had a great 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 that I love and experience a different country. So there are positives, and with the situation that’s happened, being able to look at all the positives kind of keeps you sane.”
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