A giant Israeli flag covers the hole left by a rocket that terrorists from Lebanon fired at Kiryat Bialik, Israel, on Sept. 22, 2024. Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90
A giant Israeli flag covers the hole left by a rocket that terrorists from Lebanon fired at Kiryat Bialik, Israel, on Sept. 22, 2024. Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90
featureIsrael at War

Haifa’s hardened locals shrug off Hezbollah’s escalation

Following a barrage of rockets to the suburbs of Israel's third city, residents maintain their routines as they calmly brace for war.

Having spent most of Sunday indoors following the explosion of a rocket outside her home near Haifa, Nicole Ir decided to treat her daughter to some shopping in the nearby Kiryon, one of Israel’s oldest, largest and most visited shopping malls.

When they arrived, however, Nicole and Carolina, 9, had to stand in line for 30 minutes. Because of Sunday’s escalation in rocket fire from Lebanon, management had limited to 100 the maximum capacity of visitors to the sprawling shopping center, which normally has thousands of shoppers at any time.

Those waiting dismissed or ignored the warnings by the security staff that it was unsafe to congregate at the entrance.

“That’s right. So let us into McDonald’s already!” one man told the security guard loudly, in a Russian accent, drawing chuckles from the rest.

The scene captured a widespread sentiment in Haifa’s environs, where previous conflicts and decades in Hezbollah’s crosshairs have inspired a defiant resilience in locals. They are unimpressed by the terrorists’ threats and confident in Israel’s ability to triumph.

Locals wait to enter the sprawling Kiryon shopping mall, where security guards limited the maximum capacity to 100 following rocket fire from Lebanon on Kiryat Bialik, Israel on Sept. 22, 2024. Photo by Canaan Lidor/JNS

Ir, 42, moved to Kiryat Bialik with her family only two years ago from Petah Tikvah near Tel Aviv. Over the past year, her daughter has “become used, sadly, to the emotional strains of living under rocket threat,” her mother told JNS outside the mall. Nicole’s 18-month-old baby, meanwhile, “cries incessantly when the sirens go off,” she added.

On Sunday, Nicole’s family was among the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who huddled together in safe spaces due to a major rocket barrage launched by Hezbollah, one of hundreds of such barrages since Hezbollah began attacking Israel in support of Hamas on Oct. 8. As in previous cases, Sunday’s attacks triggered Israeli strikes in Lebanon, as Israel and Hezbollah teeter on the edge of all-out war.

In Sunday’s conflagration, three people were lightly wounded when a rocket hit a row of houses in Kiryat Bialik about a mile from the mall. A 17-year-old motorist died in a car wreck that coincided with the attack, and an Arab Israeli in his 60s suffered light shrapnel wounds in Nazareth.

The Kiryat Bialik Municipality covered up the gaping holes in the worst-hit building with a giant Israeli flag as soon as firefighters declared the area safe.

The attack was unusual both in terms of volume—over 100 rockets within a few hours—and range, penetrating some 30 miles into Israeli territory.

Since Oct. 8, Hezbollah has launched thousands of rockets and missiles into cities and towns near the border with Lebanon. To avoid loss of life, Israel evacuated the residents of the border area to state-funded accommodations shortly after the outbreak of war. Some 60,000 evacuees have left Israel’s north, many of them to Haifa and its environs. The Haifa Municipality is not aware of any significant flight by residents, spokesperson Eliran Tal told JNS on Sunday.

Hezbollah has largely avoided striking Haifa proper, likely for fear of Israel’s response. Israel, meanwhile, has refrained from carrying out extensive strikes in Beirut, maintaining in this way a limited-scale conflict that has raged between Acre and Sidon since Oct. 8, the day after Hamas invaded Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting another 251, triggering a regional conflagration.

Hezbollah’s overstepping of those boundaries followed strategically and emotionally painful blows dealt to it by Israel last week, including the killing of 13 of its top officers in a targeted airstrike in Beirut on Friday.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, thousands of pagers and other pieces of gear used by Hezbollah operatives exploded, killing at least 12 and wounding thousands in what Hezbollah called an Israeli sabotage operation.

View of the Northern Israeli city of Haifa, September 22, 2024. Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Hezbollah had received “a series of blows” that it “could not have imagined.” If Hezbollah hasn’t understood the message, I promise you—it will,” he added.

Haifa and municipalities to its north have either canceled their at-school activities, transferring them to online platforms, or limited them drastically pending shelter capacities. For the first time since Oct. 7, Haifa’s beaches were closed Sunday and the Home Front Command forbade gatherings by more than 30 people in open terrain and more than 300 inside buildings.

Sunday’s escalation caught families like Nicole’s fully prepared, she said. “We stocked up on water, dry foods, preserved goods, games and videos,” added Nicole, who lives in a modern residential building where each apartment has its own reinforced rocket shelter.

Such amenities can make a significant difference in the lives of locals who may need to live in or near shelters for weeks on end, as they did during the 2006 Second Lebanon War. Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets into Israel that summer, as the Israel Defense Forces pumelled Lebanon for close to two months.

Hezbollah is believed to have increased its arsenal considerably since then. Haifa alone is projected to take thousands of hits in an all-out war scenario despite the Iron Dome and other rocket interception systems deployed around the city.

Nicole Ir is not considering leaving, she said. “Why would we? Every corner of this country is within the range of some rocket. Either we make a stand, or we run forever,” she explained.

The rockets have not made Ir regret the decision to move to Kiryat Bialik, where real estate prices are approximately half that of comparable assets in the center. The gaps in pay and opportunities between the affluent center and the poorer north, however, “are the bigger issue,” she said.

Inside the desolate mall, most of the shops were closed. The staff of the local KFC branch, which did open, played indoor soccer at the food court because they had no customers.

Neria Shimon Amar and Tzofia Vaknin pose near a sign reading “To the sheltered area” at the Kiryon mall in Kiryat Bialik on Sept. 22, 2024. Photos by Canaan Lidor/JNS

“It’s kind of a weird feeling, but it’s also convenient because this place is way more relaxed this way,” said one shopper, Tzofia Vaknin, 18. She came because she needed clothes before returning to southern Israel, where she is performing her national service as a teacher. Her friend, Neria Shimon Amar, lives very near where the rocket hit in Kiryat Bialik, he said.

“The house shook, the children cried. But the rest of us basically shrugged it off,” Amar said. “The People of Israel is strong and will triumph. I know our brethren in the Diaspora have our back. I know they have it tough, too. And we need them to stay strong,” he told JNS.
 
In nearby Kiryat Haim, Haifa’s northernmost neighborhood, the rocket sirens brought back memories for Vered Edery, a hairstylist and mother of four. She had experienced the Second Lebanon War in this at-risk neighborhood, a prominent target for Hezbollah both because of the symbolism of hitting Haifa and for the industrial and military facilities around it.

Edery was scheduled to go on a cruise on Sunday, but it got canceled because of the escalation. “Better this way,” said Edery, who has multiple grandchildren, all living in the Haifa area. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be away from my family right now anyway. It’s all part of God’s plan!”

Far from considering moving away, Edery recently bought a bomb shelter, which she had placed in the backyard of her semi-detached home. Like most structures in Haifa, it does not have a built-in sheltered area.

Amir and Nitzan Vosko and their daughter celebrate the 10th birthday of the couple’s son in Kiryat Yam, Israel in 2024. Photo courtesy of the Vosko family

Amir Vosko, a father of two from Kiryat Yam north of Haifa, lives in an apartment building with a shared bomb shelter on the basement floor. He, his wife Nitzan and their son and daughter live on the first floor, “which means we can get to the shelter quickly,” he noted.

The children “feel the stress and the initial panic when the alarm sirens blare, but then they look at us, they see us behave calmly and they relax,” said Vosko, 37. A fire safety consultant who is a member of the city council and a former consultant to the speaker of the Knesset, he doesn’t rule out having his wife and children, who both attend elementary school at a nearby kibbutz, move southward “if there’s a major escalation,” he said. As for himself, Vosko said, “I’m not going anywhere. My roots go deep, I’m staying right here to help my fellow residents the best I can.”

The escalation caught some Haifa residents abroad, including Oren Yuval, a 49-year-old father of five who lives near Haifa University, one of the Middle East’s tallest buildings that, in previous rounds of fighting, has been a high-quality target for Hezbollah.

Yuval, an electrician and plumber, is in the United States with his wife for medical treatment for his son. Their four daughters were supposed to stay in Haifa with their grandparents from the Tel Aviv area, but have moved in with their grandparents following the escalation. “It’s very difficult to be away. I wish we were back there already,” an unemotional Yuval told JNS.

Eyal Levkovich greets a visitor to his Goldmund Books bookstore in Haifa’s Hadar neighborhood. Photo courtesy of Levkovich

Back in Haifa, Eyal Levkovich, 42, has no intention of changing the opening hours at his Goldmund Books bookstore in Haifa’s Hadar neighborhood.

“During ‘difficult’ times, I’m often asked whether we’re open,” Levkovich wrote on Facebook about his store, which doubles as a popular alternative music venue and a hub for Haifa’s intellectual scene.

“So here’s my policy: We’re open every day 9 a.m.-11 p.m. but only until [Syrian President] Bashar Assad, [Hezbollah leader] Nasrallah and [Iranian leader] Ali Khamenei show up to buy a copy of [children’s author] Noam Horev. If that happens, we’re closing up.”

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