The drums of war sounded this Monday in the Finger of Galilee, the northern tip of the State of Israel, sandwiched between the Lebanese border and the Golan Heights, the plateau occupied by the army since 1967. “It looks like a Katiusha [los cohetes del partido-milicia libanés Hezbolá]Kyriat Shmona councilor Aviva Rihan-Whitman, 52, wagered as she ran to seek shelter under the concrete porch of the city’s civic center. “Ah! “These are our shots,” she smiled confidently, while the echo of the sharp detonations of the artillery reverberated like a drum between the hills. Sociologist Rihan-Withman is organizing the evacuation of the 23,000 residents of Kyriat Shmona, which was carried out on Friday by the Army was ordered in light of the increasing escalation of the war with Hezbollah, which has left at least six Israelis and more than 35 Lebanese dead since the war broke out in Gaza on January 7. Another 42 cities have also received orders to evacuate, although many have lost their homes reluctant to leave
“You will make the worst mistake of your life and miss what happened in the 2006 war,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned pro-Iran militia on the same Lebanese border on Sunday, referring to a conflict that has left people dead 1,300 Lebanese and 165 Israelis in 33 days of fighting. The deployment of Merkava tanks, artillery batteries and infantry battalions in the border area of the Upper Galilee has been observed for two weeks. The scene of a barrage of rockets from southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah stores more than 200,000 projectiles, is worrying the armed forces general staff as it seeks to head off the threat that threatens tens of thousands of civilians.
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“Half of the residents of Kyriat Shmona have already left on their own or in organized bus caravans to visit relatives or government-funded hotels,” explains the city councilor, who is responsible for social services in a city that already resembles a ghost town. with schools closed and where most businesses show their closure. “A quarter of the residents – elderly people, destitute families or people without relatives – need help to leave the city. The rest just don’t want to go,” says Rihan-Withman.
“That’s not right. “Almost half of us will stay no matter what happens,” replies David Hatani, 66, who worked in a hotel in the same civic center until his recent retirement. He was born into a Jewish family in Kyriat Shmona , who had just emigrated from Morocco. He remembers that when he was barely ten years old, a Syrian mortar shell took the life of his classmate. “Since then, I have seen all the wars from my house: the Six-Day War (1967), the Yom -Kippur War (1973) and the two wars in Lebanon (1982 and 2006),” he recapitulates to justify his decision not to evacuate the area., despite the order of the military authorities.
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David Hatani is a Torah-observant Jew who “takes a dim view of the promiscuity between secular and religious people and the lack of kosher food (according to Jewish law) in the hotels where the displaced seek refuge.” He is not alone, although the decision to remain in a zone of hostilities appears risky. Anti-bomb alarm sirens blared in Kyriat Shmona at 4:30 p.m. Monday, shortly after an armed group opened fire on the kibbutz (collective farm) of Misgav Am, which was isolated on a hill and surrounded by fences and barbed wire . thereby separating it from Lebanese territory. An army spokesman reported shortly afterwards that artillery responded with several volleys aimed at the point of origin of the shots, while two “terrorist units” entered a nearby area called Sheba Farms, an area disputed between Lebanon and Israel, and fired anti-tank missiles.
Reservist Amir Shamir, 43, guards the Kyriat Shmona civic center, from where the evacuation of the city is being organized.Edward Kaprov
“I’m not going either,” says Shlomo Elhag, 85, a retired armed forces sergeant who has lived through all of the State of Israel’s wars, including the war after its founding in 1948. Along with his son Ishashi, a building contractor, who is in old age mobilized as a volunteer at the age of 42, two years after the expiry of the legal obligation to resume service as a reservist, is guarding his house. The house stands halfway up the hill that marks the territorial border with Lebanon. “My mother and sisters were evacuated along with other family members, but my brothers, sons and nephews are all now patrolling the city,” said Ishashi Elhag, who has an M-16 assault rifle draped over his uniform. Infantry corporal.
The army has blocked access to Metula, the northernmost point of the Finger of Galilee, which is surrounded by Lebanese territory on all four directions except the south. Among the last towns ordered to be evacuated by the army is Hagoshrim, a dozen kilometers northeast of Kyriat Shmona. A soldier’s checkpoint blocks the way to the fenced area of the city, where around 1,300 people have previously lived. There are only 200 left. Among them are Sheila’s octogenarian parents, who do not want to give their last name. This 57-year-old teacher at a secondary school in Haifa, the capital in northern Israel, shows “respect” for her parents’ decision. “I asked them to come with me, but they prefer to stay home no matter what happens,” he said as he crossed the military checkpoint in his vehicle.
Before he says goodbye, he asks if there is anything else he could say. “There are many people in Israel who think that this war must end,” she explains with the conviction of the teacher explaining the lesson to her students. “Many of us believe that we must seek an agreement to live in peace with the Palestinians.” Over the skies of the Galilee, artillery targets are marked from an observation airship pointing north toward Hezbollah-controlled territory Lebanon, from which nearly 120,000 civilians have fled in the past two weeks, according to the United Nations. A similar figure to the one displaced within Israel. Around the Gaza Strip, awaiting a ground operation against Hamas. Also on the northern border, where there are fewer and fewer civilians in view of the possible offensive by the Shiite party militia.
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