‘It’s devastating’: Northern Israelis hesitate to rebuild lives after war

Less than 3,000 of Kiryat Shmona’s 28,000 residents have returned, transforming the once-bustling streets into a ghost town.

By Anna Epshtein, TPS

Midway through a temporary ceasefire with Hezbollah, residents of northern Israel are still reluctant to return to their homes.

Some residents of Kiryat Shmona and Metula told The Press Service of Israel they are not convinced that the threat of Hezbollah has been eliminated. Others told TPS-IL they like their new lives in central Israel better or were struggling to deal with government bureaucracy to begin rebuilding.

“Some 15 percent of the city’s population already made up their minds that they will not return,” Yehuda Haim, Kiryat Shmona’s deputy mayor told TPS-IL.

Haim owns several tire services in the area and was checking in one of them.

“I saw it and I wanted to run from there,” he confessed to TPS-IL. “It’s depressing. There’s mold on the walls, rats that inhabited the place… I totally understand the people who came to see their houses after a year and do not want to return.”

Inside Kiryat Shmona, the streets are mostly empty resembling a ghost town in most neighborhoods. The signs of destruction are not as visible compared to nearby communities like Metula and Kibbutz Manara. A shopping mall’s parking lot is full of cars, and while many shops have reopened, the cafes have not.

‘There is no place like home,” a sign reads.

But there are hardly any shoppers. Of the city’s 28,000 residents, less than 3,000 have returned. Most of the mall’s visitors are from nearby towns, or taking advantage of the ceasefire to check in on their property before leaving.

“My daughter wanted to find something in her room, but she just entered the house and rushed back,” Hannie Gillian told TPS-IL while looking for clothes in one of the shops.

“It’s devastating to see your home being turned into ruins.” Gillian’s house in the nearby town of Metula was destroyed after taking a direct rocket hit.

The family is renting an apartment in Safed. Gillian said she wants to return to Metula but has not received any information from authorities on compensation that would enable the family to rebuild.

“We are at war with Hezbollah, but also with the government for the compensation,” she said.

One of the few businesses that managed to stay open during the entire war was a pet store that served residents of nearby towns.

“People are afraid to return,” said the store owner who did not want to provide his name to TPS-IL. “The ceasefire has been holding so far, but it’s not enough. They want to see what happens once the army leaves Lebanon in a month.”

Igal Ohayon remained alone in Kiryat Shmona while his family evacuated to Jerusalem. He works in the Har Odem winery in the Golan Heights, and the war broke out during the grape harvesting season.

“Wine is this kind of business that cannot wait – if you abandon it, you ruin it,” he explained to TPS-IL. “The place needed me, so I stayed.”

He says many of his friends from the city do now want to come back from where they live now as evacuees.

“Life is better in the center of the country. Education, medicine, entertainment… After experiencing it, they do not want to return to the north,” Ohayon said.

David Kamari, who did not evacuate, told TPS-IL, “Only people who do not have a choice have returned.”

Asked why he didn’t evacuate, Kamari shrugged and said, “You don’t leave home.”

Kamari’s house was hit by shrapnel from rockets while he was inside. He sleeps in the house’s old safe room, the only room where the roof is not in danger of falling.

After the house was damaged, he moved his sofa and table to the yard for an outdoor salon. Kamari was already using the yard as a hot food distribution center for other Kiryat Shmona residents who stayed.

Unlike in the south of Israel, where the Tekuma (‘Rehabilitation’) Directorate of the Israeli government was created just two weeks after the October 7 attack and around 53,000 out of 64,000 evacuated residents living near the Gaza border have either returned to their homes or are living in nearby temporary housing, northern rehabilitation has not yet begun.

In December, the government allocated 15 billion shekels for reviving of the north ($4.1 billion), compared to 19 billion shekels ($5.2 billion) allocated to the south and the 31 billion shekels ($8.4 billion) that northern communities requested.

The money is meant to be spent over five years, but government bureaucracy has prevented the money from reaching the local level.

Asked about the budget, Deputy Mayor Haim said, “It’s a joke. I am not sure it’s enough for rehabilitating Kiryat Shmona alone.”

He explained, “There were tanks driving through the streets of the city, damaging the infrastructure. It needs to be replaced. If a rocket hit a road, the government would only pay for patching the crater. But if you have several craters on a road, within a year the road becomes uneven like a roller coaster. So you need to build a new road, not patch the craters.”

He said young people are not eager to return to Kiryat Shmona because there wasn’t much to keep them there even before October 7.

“Here, we see the result of 40 years of abandonment. There is no hospital, not a single cinema in the city,” Haim said. “You cannot bring back the residents by returning the north to what it was on October 6. You need to make a dramatic change here, or you lose it.”

evacueesHezbollahIsrael Northern BorderKiryat Shmonarocket fire