Shva Dov Coulter, a young Israeli woman studying cooking in Paris, found herself in a surprising and stressful situation during what seemed like a routine taxi ride.
According to Coulter, during a conversation with the taxi driver, a Lebanese citizen, he revealed that he had once been part of the Hezbollah terror organization.
"A friend came to visit me, and we went out together to celebrate," Coulter said in an interview with Channel 12 News. "We ordered a taxi via an app, and I saw the driver spoke English, something which usually doesn’t happen here. He helped us with something related to a restaurant for the next day, and the conversation with him flowed easily."
Later in the ride, Coulter asked the driver where he was from, and he replied that he was from Lebanon. She responded, as usual, that she was from Israel, and she said that his face "turned pale."
"It was a bit uncomfortable to see. From his facial expression, I understood, and I told him I understood that he didn’t like us," she added.
The driver’s response came quickly. According to her, he said, "I have no problem with people from Israel, I have a problem with [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben Gvir," and began talking about politics. When she dared to ask his opinion on Hezbollah, he answered, "I am from Hezbollah."
At that moment, she said, she also felt fear. "There were still seven minutes left in the ride. I decided that I had been sent on a mission, and I tried to do a bit of outreach. We talked about October 7th, and I told him that personally, I have three friends who were murdered in the Nova massacre."
The driver’s response at the end of the ride was just as surprising: he offered her his phone number in case she needed a ride in the future. "We left a wrong number," she noted.