Five days after the massacre in the communities surrounding Gaza (Otef Aza), we walked through the charred kibbutzim. Under the bright sun, our eyes could not grasp what they saw; the shattered houses, the blood on the beds and in the children's playrooms, the pacifiers that were a silent testimony to small lives that disappeared forever. The soul that could not stand the smell of death wafting in the air. And above it all hovered the deathly silence of a killing field. An unfamiliar screaming silence struck us.
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Yesterday, three weeks later, we walked in the north. Traffic on Route 90 towards Kiryat Shmona is sparse. The sky is gray and rain trickles from time to time. This is the beautiful season of the Upper Galilee, a yellowish and greenish fall, pleasant winds breaking through without warning. But the beauty of the northern roads is now hidden under nets of camouflage, and hundreds of armored personnel carriers (APCs) and tanks travel on the asphalt roads leading to the kibbutzim, and on the city boulevards.
Video: A visit to a deserted Kiryat Shomona
Kiryat Shmona has become a ghost town
Kiryat Shmona has become a ghost town. The blinds in the old housing complexes remain closed, the windows are locked. A punctured football or two are left on the ground in front of the houses. The laughter of children cannot be heard on the street, the balconies are silent, and Amar's legendary falafel stand is closed.
Video: Kiryat Shmona hit by rocket fire / Credit: Kiryat Shmona City Hall press office
Is this a different kind of calm, the one before the storm? Even if it doesn't break loose in full force against Hezbollah, just over the ridge, it is clear that something major needs to happen here for life here to get back on track. This time the silence is familiar. It is not clear how the storm will break out and where it will come from; but we know that it will come.
At 14:00 a combat team gathers for a briefing on the outskirts of the city. Well-equipped reservists, maintaining discipline and silence, operate quietly and confidently. A tank division is parked alongside the sidewalk, the engines are running.
We are in a war zone, and the urban space is taking on the atmosphere of the front line. On the first day after October 7, countless tanks and APCs made their way here on top of caterpillar tracks, on main roads in the north, as befits an emergency. The deployment was massive and quick – to avoid a possible surprise from the north.
We are sitting under a eucalyptus tree on the bank of a Nachal Dan tributary. Two reservists quickly bathe in the cool water to freshen up. From time to time the artillery batteries in the area break the silence with a deafening noise. We sense the vigilance; every day is a day of battle.
Salz's confident voice also begins to crack
Every day the Israeli defense improves, the enemy becomes tougher and absorbs more, and the Israeli defense line in the north is tense like a spring that can turn in the blink of an eye into an offensive hurricane. The main front is in the south, but every conversation with the people here is underscored: it's a different kind of game; and if it erupts, it will set new boundaries for life in the Galilee.
Leaving Kiryat Shmona, just before sunset. The rain continues to drip on our nerves, the mountains of Lebanon are on the other side, and Mt. Hermon prepares for night just above us. The fields that were preparing for the winter are packed with military equipment, in almost unimaginable quantities, and the contrast between it all is like the contrast in our soul between the pain for what has happened to us and the pride for what we see before our eyes right now.
Giora Salz, head of the Upper Galilee Regional Council, welcomes us at the entrance to the Council's protected military command room, with a shortened M16 hanging on his shoulder. The other members of the council are also in combat mode – with their weapons on them.
Council veterans sit in the command room and supervise assistance to the residents of the region, to those who were evacuated to hotels, and also to those who were not. Every morning the farmers come here to work on the crops, almost up to the border, or at least to the area where the army allows them to reach.
Salz and his men have already seen everything. They have been here for more than 40 years and do not intend to give up even during the most difficult period of the Galilee Panhandle. They commandeer civilians and report that some residents, certainly those not adjacent to the fence, are beginning to return to their homes after a month away. But even Salz's confident and monotone voice begins to tremble when talking about "the day after."
A Matter of Existence
"We were at the height of prosperity," he says, "kibbutzim were expanding, with more demand than supply, people took out mortgages and came here from the center of the country. Now, after we have seen what happened in the south, the inhumane tragedy, who can tell those residents that it won't happen to us as well? We have two kibbutzim whose fence is the actual fence of the State of Israel. How will they live here when the Radwan force is sitting in front of them?"
Salz and his friends are confident that they will live here and prosper here, but for many residents who helped the Galilee thrive and flourish in recent decades and do not know of periods of war on the border, the question still remains open.
"On October 7, something big broke in the country," says Salz, "the contract between the state and its citizens was breached. I have people in the council who are already coming back here, to take care of the chickens on the mountain and the barns in the local kibbutzim, to take care of their crops. These are the people of the land."
He is angry at the image they gave kibbutz members, turning them into land thieves, the "initial land of Israel", who misrepresented who they really are: people of action, border guards.
So, in the Gaza border region, and in the Jordan Valley, and in the Golan Heights, and along the Lebanese border. People hold a plow in their right hand and a gun in their left hand – these are Israelis, Zionists. Salz knows they won't go anywhere, but he, and all the residents of Israel's northern border, are looking for an answer to what will be with their homes. Will the enemy be defeated in the future war – or whatever will be will be? They are not ready to accept the second option. This is a matter of existence.
