Kiryat Shemona Mayor Remains Unyielding in Face of Hezbollah Rockets

Jerusalem, 16 January, 2024 (TPS) -- More than 85 percent of his city has been evacuated as Hezbollah fires rockets across the border, but Kiryat Shemona Mayor Avichai Stern is, without a doubt, calm, cool and collected.

“Hezbollah’s Radwan Force is right here on the fence. You can see it from the town. When I see them leave their positions, I understand that something must be happening in a short while and there will probably be a rocket attack,” he matter of factly tells the Tazpit Press Service. “They fire anti-tank missiles at our houses, since it is so close to the city, they don’t even need to use the long-distance rockets.”

Since the war began, around 21,000 of Kiryat Shemona’s 24,000 residents were evacuated, scattered among 223 different hotels from the north all the way down to Eilat. But Stern and 3,000 stay. Some work in critical jobs, such as fire fighters, medical workers, municipal employees and people caring for livestock. Others have health conditions that make moving impossible, while a few simply refused to leave.

“We have to take care of the wounded from those shootings, there are over a dozen houses in the city that were damaged, hundreds of vehicles were burned from the damage, kindergartens and a high school building are damaged,” the 38 year-old mayor tells TPS.

Stern sets aside weekends to leaves Kiryat Shemona and visit evacuated residents. They seem to look forward to the mayor’s visits but he anticipates them even more as meeting them encourages him to keep working under great amount of stress.

“Our residents are very strong, and despite the difficulty they all understand the meaning of all this. They will not return home until they are assured of peace and they do not want it to be a few years peace before the cycle repeats again – the residents expect a long-term peace for decades, at least. They tell me, let’s finish dealing with this threat now, no matter how long it takes. They are ready to stay strong and wait until the problem is solved,” Stern says.

Stern, has been serving as the mayor of Kiryat Shemona for over five years. He was born and raised in the border city and knows all too well the threats it faces. Since 2018, Hezbollah has boasted of its ability to seize the Israel’s Galilee region with larger, better-trained terror units than Hamas.

“No sovereign country would allow the enemy to sit on its fences, and yet we are talking about the current situation in terms of low intensity war,” says Stern. “But you cannot let tens of thousands of people live their lives when there is still a very tangible and real death threat, as we saw three months ago at Gaza border.”

Asked about the anxieties of his city, Stern explains, “It is a miracle that on October 7th this threat did not materialize here, but if it did, it would not end up with 1,500 murdered civilians, we would be talking about 10,000 murdered at least.”

Stern follows closely the active preparations of the Iran-backed Hezbollah, particularly its Radwan unit. Its primary mission is to rapidly infiltrate northern Israel, seize control of communities and take hostages, similar to Hamas’s attacks on October 7. The Radwan unit has considerable combat experience in Syria and regarded as elite in comparison to Hamas.

“My fear is that eventually we may lack the essential international support and find ourselves compelled to compromise in yet another international agreement that won’t yield any tangible benefits on the ground,” Stern tells TPS.

“We are familiar with the dynamics of such international agreements; no one really respects them, not even the UNIFIL forces that are supposed to enforce it. Agreement No. 1701, which we previously entered into, proved ineffective.” Stern was referring to According to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War. Under its terms, Hezbollah was supposed to disarm and be barred from operating south of Lebanon’s Litani River. Israeli officials have been critical of UNIFIL’s inability to stop Hezbollah.

On Sunday, 76-year-old Mira Ayalon and her son Barak were killed when Hezbollah fired an anti-tank rocket that directly struck their home on Moshav Kfar Yuval.

“The way to deal with this is to destroy the infrastructure, all those villas that Hezbollah has built on the fence, those houses have tunnels and infrastructure under them that are used for terrorist purposes. Unfortunately, there is no other way but ground entry to eliminate the threat. Only after it’s removed will it be possible to return to normality in the town and the area,” Stern says.

Stern hopes that Israelis and the international community do not forget what is at stake as time passes and memories fade.

“It’s been three months since the war broke out and people have started to forget the pictures,” he says. “It’s important to remember that we are facing a cruel enemy who burned babies alive, raped and murdered women, murdered parents in front of their children, abused and raped corpses. Is that who we hope to negotiate with and sign agreements with?”