Kiryat Shmona has been evacuated for months due to its proximity to Israel's northern border, but not all of the city's more than 20,000 residents have fled. About 3,000 remain, and they make up both the strongest and most vulnerable of the city's residents, Yael Eckstein, president of the International Federation of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), explained to The Jerusalem Post.
Northern Israel has been under near-constant attack since war broke out between Israel and Hamas on October 7. Cities within two kilometers of the border have been evacuated, with residents dispersed to hotels and apartments across the country. Drone and rocket attacks have increased in recent weeks, with impacts causing large fires.
Nevertheless, not everyone who is eligible to leave home is willing or able to do so.
“The people who stay are split into two groups,” Eckstein said. “The first group is the leaders, the strongest, the bravest, the people who can actually stay and contribute.”
These are “people whose entire families have evacuated and are traveling in their cars.” [and living] “This is to protect against rocket and drone attacks, to ensure the safety of those left behind and to protect infrastructure,” she explained.
Another group that remains in the city are those who cannot evacuate, the IFCJ representative explained. Many of them are elderly, struggling financially or lacking family support. They “say, 'I'd rather die at home than live as a refugee,'” Eckstein said.
Among those who were unable to evacuate and remained were families with young children, many of whom did not evacuate due to financial difficulties.
These families have been offered evacuation assistance by the government, but evacuation is not always feasible for many who still have mortgages and other bills to pay and whose jobs have been affected by the war.
Many of these families have taken refuge in public bomb shelters. Eckstein described visiting one and meeting a family with three children. She spoke to one of the children and asked her what the hardest thing about their situation was for her.
“She said, 'I hate taking a shower. I was in the shower and the alarm went off and I had to rush out of the shower. I didn't have time to wrap myself in a towel and I didn't know what to do. It was the worst feeling of my life. I heard an explosion so close by and I'm not taking a shower again. I'm not taking a shower until this is over.'”
Eckstein described meeting another child living in public care who was 9 years old and “kind of looked, you know, a little bit Yankee. He had earrings and a mohawk,” she said, adding that this led her to believe he would put on a brave face for her.
But when Eckstein put her hand on his back and asked him how he was, she was surprised: “He just broke down and cried like a little baby,” she recalled.
“He said, 'I'm scared to die here. There are more and more rockets every day. There are more and more drones every day. They might come over the mountains and attack us like they did around Gaza on October 7. I'm scared to die.'”
This sense of fear, and helplessness in not being able to carry out even the most basic daily tasks, was not unique to the children Eckstein met.
A mother living in a shelter with her three children also spoke of this existential dread: “She told me, ‘Every day, every morning, we draw a kind of lottery for all the families who live in the shelter. [to determine] Who would go buy a pita? Because by going to buy a pita, we are putting our lives at risk.”
The group's leader said he was shocked to find water in the emergency kits that families had asked the group for.
“I've visited the battlefields in Ukraine. I've been to different parts of Ethiopia. [needing] “Water is scarce in times of war and crisis and in Third World countries, but here I am standing in Kiryat Shmona, two hours outside of Tel Aviv, and what they are asking me for is water.”
How IFCJ is helping people in the north
IFCJ supports Beit Batia, a soup kitchen in Kiryat Shmona, and 20 other soup kitchens in Eilat, farther south. All of these soup kitchens have continued to operate during the war, and we are increasing funding for the soup kitchen in Kiryat Shmona so it can serve more meals.
The soup kitchen chef, Eckstein said, was part of the first group to remain in the city. His family fled to Tiberias, but “he cooked hundreds of meals every day and distributed them to people across the city,” she said.
Eckstein said he used to arrive at the soup kitchen around 4 or 5 a.m. to start preparing meals, but now, with fewer volunteers than usual, he arrives at 1 a.m. and works through the night “to make sure the food is ready when the seniors are awake and looking forward to it.”
Many peacetime volunteers have left the city, she said, but have been replaced by members of Kitot Konenut (the Rapid Security Force) and other residents who have stayed to contribute.
“it is, [a situation where] Everyone who remained in town and was in a position to help has stepped up in whatever capacity they could.”
The soup kitchen's operations have been greatly affected by the situation: Due to a shortage of volunteers, IFCJ has had to provide the soup kitchen with a refrigerated truck so it can deliver food with fewer volunteers, and the soup kitchen was recently hit by a rocket attack.
Miraculously, “we were back up and running cooking within 24 hours, which is amazing,” Eckstein said. The rocket did not explode and the building was not destroyed, she said.
“It did damage to the building, but if it had exploded the whole building would have been blown up.”
Eckstein said he hadn't heard anything about the city before his visit, but nothing could have prepared him for the suffering of its residents he encountered: “It was a heartbreaking and terrifying experience.”
She described delivering food to one of the kitchen's caterers, a Holocaust survivor, who told her she didn't want to leave home “at her age.”
Eckstein only had one meal – a truck with the rest of the meals followed a few minutes later – but when people saw Eckstein with the meals, many older residents came by and asked if there had been a delivery.
“It was like a ghost town,” she says. “Then all of a sudden [see] “More than 10 seniors have come out and asked about food because this is food they're waiting to eat that day,” she said, emphasizing how important it is for residents who can't leave town.
“People always ask me, 'Where's the government? Where's the government?'” Eckstein said.
“Our answer has always been: we believe the government is doing all it can. We don't ask: 'Where is the government?' We ask: 'How can we save lives?' When there is a situation on the ground where people need us, we won't succumb to bureaucracy or the government. [waiting for round] Whether it's someone sitting and waiting on a table or someone pointing the finger, we'll rush in and help.”
Helping the residents of Kiryat Shmona is about more than just giving them a livelihood, Eckstein said. “I think it's a huge misconception that those of us who live in other parts of Israel feel or think that we have nothing to do with what's going on there,” the IFCJ leader said.
“If Kiryat Shmona is a ghost town, if there is no one there, then Kiryat Shmona does not exist.”
