JFJFP

May 12, 2024

commentary

JFJFP

Tags: 11th Adar, continued displacement, Hezbollah, lebanon diplomatic agreement, Lobby 1701, next school year, regional councils, Tel Hai

Six months after being evacuated from their homes, residents of Israel's northern border communities don't know where to register their children for the next school year – and wonder if the government has abandoned the north for good

the banner at the entrance to Kfar Giladi.Credit: Gil Eliyahu

Adi Hashmonai reports in Haaretz May 4, 2024

The roads in the Galilee panhandle have been deserted for more than half a year. The traffic lights along the main highway that crosses the abandoned town of Kiryat Shmona flash orange permanently, and at the northern exit of the city there are IDF checkpoints with signs warning against entering due to the threat of anti-tank fire from Lebanon. But during a visit to the area in late March, there was also a different tone in the air. On the concrete protective barrier at the turn from Highway 90 to Kibbutz Kfar Giladi there’s a new banner, inscribed in huge letters with the words of Aharon Sher, one of the eight who fell in the battle of Tel Hai in the northern Galilee in 1920: “We aren’t leaving the place, we aren’t giving up what has been built.” An identical banner hangs at the entrance to the Roaring Lion Monument.

The two signs were hung in response to a government decision to cancel, for the first time in 90 years, the official ceremony to mark the 11th of Adar, the day of the battle for Tel Hai, due to fear of a Hezbollah attack. (The ceremony commemorates early Zionist hero Joseph Trumpeldor and his fellow settlers of the area who fell defending their homes here in 1920.) For many, the cancelation of the ceremony that celebrates the Zionist ethos, was a symbolic reinforcement of their growing sense that the government has abandoned them, and along with them – the northern border.

The members of Lobby 1701 – the civil organization that was established after the evacuation of the northern communities, to demand a solution to enable the residents to return to their homes – initiated an alternative ceremony to mark the date, together with the Ne’emanei Tel Hai organization and the Kibbutz Kfar Giladi community. In an invitation that was disseminated on social media, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted as saying at the annual ceremony three years ago, “We aren’t losing the north, even in moments of crisis.”

For many, the cancelation of the ceremony that celebrates the Zionist ethos, was a symbolic reinforcement of their growing sense that the government has abandoned them, and along with them – the northern border.

At the same time, Netanyahu’s bureau informed the regional council heads in the north about another potential extension of the evacuation period, which began in October and resulted in the displacement of tens of thousands of residents of dozens of communities near the northern border. The organizers of the ceremony were unaware of that, since the notice wasn’t publicized officially, but rather during a round of individual conversations with the regional council heads, some of whom told Haaretz that they were told to keep it a secret. In other words, the official target date for bringing back the residents remains July 7, prior to the start of the school year in September, but the council heads were told to prepare for the possibility that that won’t happen, and that the next school year won’t open in the northern communities. That means the continued displacement of the residents.

More …

‘We’re in a War, and We’re Abandoned’: Israel’s Northern Evacuees Face an Uncertain Future