In Israel, All is Disquieting on the Northern Front

Seth Frantzman recently traveled through northern Israel, between the cities of Safed and Meron, from which 60,000 Israelis have had to flee southward because of Hezbollah’s unending drone, missile, and rocket attacks. Aside from the whirr of those deadly weapons in the air, before they land, and then the great boom when they explode or, in most cases, are intercepted by Israel’s four-layered anti-missile defense system (Arrow 2 and 3, David’s Sling, Iron Dome), there is only silence. There is no “busy hum of men.” More on the eerie silence and emptiness of the streets he encountered can be found here: “‘Post’ gives inside look into northern Israeli ghost towns amid endless war of attrition,” by Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Post, June 2, 2024:

…The North of Israel, near Kiryat Shmona, felt deserted. There were cars on the road, but most were people going to essential work – agriculture or soldiers and police passing through. Inside Kiryat Shmona, the city was abandoned, as it has been for seven months now.

A few army jeeps and ambulances were around, and one row of shops was open, selling baked goods, falafel, and shwarma. Other than that, there was no one around. On one street, two cars were burned crisp from a projectile fired by Hezbollah. The playgrounds were empty; it was hard to imagine the sound of children here.

Nearby, on the roads near the Jordan River, paths that would normally be bloated with tourists at this time of year stood empty, with no one at the picnic tables. Concrete shelters have sprung up at bus stops in recent months to provide shelter for people who find themselves on the road, should a siren catch them in the middle.

Near Kfar Blum, an area often targeted by Hezbollah in the Hula Valley, there were a few agricultural workers in the fields with tractors. The area was tranquil and peaceful, mostly because there are very few people here, on roads that otherwise would have more cars and civilians….

The area in the mountains between Safed and Meron, which has been frequently targeted by Hezbollah, felt quiet now, allowing to hear the chirping of birds. It doesn’t feel like war….

The whole of the Hula Valley seemed exposed to Hezbollah fire; a warplane could be heard in the distance. The Golan Heights loom over, parched and dry, with Mount Dov and Mount Hermon visible in the distance, as is Metulla and the border with Lebanon.

I drove on the roads of the valley, but navigation applications don’t work in this area, as they haven’t for many months. So, I navigated the old-fashioned way, using signs. I wanted to get a coffee and something to eat, but it was hard to find a place and one that was open. I finally found one at Tzomet Goma.

Just as I arrived, explosions broke out in the distance over Kiryat Shmona, reverberating up and down the valley. More explosions followed an hour later as Iron Dome interceptors confronted the threats in the skies above.

This is the war in the North — an everyday thing. Every day, Hezbollah attacks, and Israel responds. However, for the civilians there is no sense of a war that is won, it is simply a daily cycle. There is no clarity on what the future holds here. And it has been this way for months, day in and day out. Every day brings more attacks – missiles, rockets and drones.

The civilians who remained do mostly essential work, like the emergency standby squads of the communities, soldiers, police, or ambulance drivers, as well as work in the fields. There didn’t seem to be many other civilians….

The silence and emptiness will remain until those 60,000 Israelis now in the south can return to their homes in the north. And that will happen only when the IDF, tired of the tit-for-tat attacks, takes on Hezbollah with the same determination and ferocity that it has demonstrated ever since it took on Hamas in Gaza on October 7.