Israel’s second front: traveling with the mayor of a ghost town

When the sirens sound on Israel’s border with Lebanon, there are just under ten seconds left before a possible rocket strikes. Avichai Stern has now discovered a rhythm in the attacks: “The first rockets usually come at midday,” he says. “Then again around four or five in the afternoon.” The alarm has become routine for the mayor of the small town of Kirjat Shmona.

It’s just before eleven. After the usual process, Stern doesn’t have much time left before he has to take cover for the first time. The 38-year-old is sitting in his rocket-proof operations center, a windowless, clinically brightly lit basement room in the old city administration. Stern can switch between different surveillance cameras on a screen on the wall. They show him his city: There are more cats than people walking through the streets of Kirjat Shmona.

It has always been quiet here, at least in recent years, but in a different, good way. The Chula Plain, in which the city is located, stretches like a green ribbon through the north of Israel. The farmers planted avocados and pomegranates. People vacationed in the bungalows of the surrounding kibbutzim. And Hezbollah, the terrorist militia across the border from Lebanon, remained quiet after its last war with Israel in 2006.

But now there is fear in paradise. Kiryat Shmona is under attack every day. Since the Hamas massacre three months ago, Hezbollah, the best friend of Israel’s arch-enemy Iran, has been firing more and more rockets over the border hills. The Israeli military (IDF) strikes back. It is still a war on the back burner. But there is great fear that this is exactly where the next conflict in the Middle East could escalate. Of the 22,000 residents of Kiryat Shmona, only 3,000 remained in the city. Those who don’t want to leave. Those who have to stay. Both apply to Avichai Stern.