Deserted streets, closed shops, and the sounds of explosions are heard from the nearby hills, followed by billowing smoke.
This is now the case in the town of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel, located just 3 kilometers from the Lebanese border.
The quiet city is on alert as Israel prepares for a possible war with Hezbollah after the increase in clashes between the two parties over the past days.
Last Friday, the Israeli army revealed that the Emergency Authority of the Ministry of Defense would evacuate the residents of the town, which is inhabited by about 22 thousand people, to move to state-funded guest houses, after it was subjected to violent bombardment by Hezbollah members.
Israel has already declared some areas along the border closed military zones, forcing residents to leave, but this is the largest evacuation from the green hills in the Galilee region in the east, according to Reuters.
Israel began evacuating thousands of residents from 28 towns in the north of the country last week, after clashes on the border, and intends to evacuate 14 other towns close to the Lebanese border, amid repeated missile attacks by Hezbollah and its allied Palestinian factions in the last two weeks.
The Washington Post quoted a picture of the situation in northern Israel, especially in Kiryat Shmona, with the escalation of confrontations, and indicated that members of the army were preventing civilians from leaving the town towards the Lebanese border, in reference to the tension now occurring in this region “after the relative peace that the cities enjoyed.” In northern Israel and southern Lebanon since the 2006 war.
The two sides fought a devastating war in the summer of 2006, which left more than 1,200 dead on the Lebanese side, most of them civilians, and 160 dead on the Israeli side, most of them military, and caused the displacement of about a million Lebanese from their towns.
After the Hamas attack, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant threatened to “return Lebanon to the Stone Age” if Hezbollah escalated the conflict, and an army spokesman warned that it would “drag Lebanon into war.”
Earlier this week, a missile fired by militants landed on a sidewalk between a school and a playground, and just 100 meters from the office of the mayor of Kiryat Shmona. Israel responded by launching air strikes inside Lebanon, killing 15 militants and four civilians, including Reuters journalist Issam. Abdullah, according to Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army.
In a statement to Reuters, Israeli citizen Ido Goldstein said upon his arrival in Kiryat Shmona to pick up his elderly father, one of its residents: “It is a complex and dangerous situation (but we are) strong and we hope it will end quickly.”
He added, “We are trying to survive.”
“We were born here, we fought two or three wars in the north, and we hope there will be an end to it,” said Nissim Tsabaria, an elderly Israeli, waving goodbye to his neighbors as he got into his car. “There will definitely be an end.”
Many civilians in Kiryat Shmona are preparing to move to government-provided guest houses, but some have decided to stay to feed the soldiers and coordinate the evacuation.
Avihai Stern, the town’s mayor, told the Washington Post: “We have a strong Zionist people who have chosen to live on the border and are well aware that we are the human shield of this country.”
Local officials are receiving phone calls from residents about what to do. Aviva Weizman, a council member, told a caller asking how to evacuate: “I don’t have answers right now,” and in another call she told a caller: “I will do everything I can to address this.”
Weizman turned her home into what she called an “operations center,” where neighbors and relatives cooked food for the soldiers.
In the neighboring HaGoshrim neighborhood, 12 women spent the morning cooking food to distribute to 500 soldiers on the front line.
Yossi Baruch, a 71-year-old resident of the neighborhood, said: “We know that the situation will be worse than what happened in the south if Hezbollah decides to enter the war.”
Mati Ashkenazi, 54, said: “Many Israelis do not believe that we need to kill everyone and destroy everything. But now, many of them are overwhelmed with feelings of revenge.”
Israel accuses Hezbollah of setting up sites near the border. Residents of Kiryat Shmona say they fearfully watch the construction of new buildings on the Lebanese side, and when they hear news of drilling sounds, they worry about infiltration attempts.
“We can’t say for sure what they’re building there, but I can say for certain that we don’t feel safe,” said Weitzman, the council member.
2023-10-23 18:57:43
#Israel #preparing #war #Hezbollah
