“We were saved by ten seconds,” Simon, 59, an Israeli, said in his early Sunday morning when the alarms started to sound again. He got out of the car, went into the house and ran to the safe room – a reinforced room that many buildings have – with his family. Then, at around 6:30, he estimates, the big impact came. A huge explosion about thirty metres from the house located in a residential area of Kiryat Bialik, on the outskirts of Haifa, the large city in north-west Israel overlooking the Mediterranean coast. Geula, 60, Simon’s wife, turns around him in the midst of the devastation and concludes: “This is a war scene. Boom, boom, boom!” In front of the woman, some buildings have been hit by the flames, as have some vehicles, although there have only been three injuries.
All indications are that this is one of the 150 missiles and drones that, according to the authorities of the Jewish State, Hezbollah launched during the early hours of Sunday at Israeli territory from Lebanon, some 30 kilometers in a straight line from Kiryat Bialik. This point is the furthest at which the Lebanese party-militia has managed to hit its southern neighbor since the current war began on October 7. Hezbollah has announced in a statement two “successful” drone attacks against “new positions” of Israeli soldiers in the north of the country.
The night has been marked by attacks from both sides of the border. Israeli air forces have killed three people in the past few hours after bombing southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley dozens of times, with an intensity of fire hardly seen in almost a year of war. Hezbollah has acknowledged the death of one of its fighters.
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“If Hezbollah did not get the message, I promise you that it will get it,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defiantly warned, insisting that he would do “everything necessary to restore security” in his country, according to a video message. “In recent days, we have hit Hezbollah with a series of attacks that they could not have imagined,” the president said, reaffirming his determination to “return safely to their homes” the approximately 60,000 residents of the border area displaced for almost a year by the war. “No country can tolerate the launching of missiles against its residents or its cities,” the prime minister insisted, and “the State of Israel cannot tolerate it either.”
“With the region on the brink of imminent catastrophe, it cannot be overstated: there is no military solution that will make both sides safer,” said Jeanine Hennis, the UN special coordinator for Lebanon. Hours earlier, pro-Iranian militias in Iraq claimed responsibility for four missile and drone attacks against Israel. “An escalation in Lebanon means an escalation in Iraq,” warned one of their leaders.
Hezbollah has targeted military installations that could be the large factory of the Rafael defence company, located about two kilometres away. Sitting at the door of his house, Ilan, 60, is still wearing the uniform of the company where he was working the night shift when the rocket hit in front of his home. He laughs when he tells other neighbours and acquaintances that the Lebanese militia claimed that it was Rafael’s facilities that they intended to hit. His son’s black Suzuki has numerous shrapnel holes that have pierced the metalwork.
In fact, the company’s facilities had already been identified last June after Hezbollah, supported by Iran, made public the recording made with one of its drones which showed, in addition to this factory, various places in the area around the important port of Haifa.
As technicians begin assessing the damage, Simon looks down and points to his work clothes, which he was wearing to start his Sunday workday, the first working day of the Israeli week. Chen, his 34-year-old daughter, walks around, attending to the officials who take notes.
The “response” to the attacks of the ‘buscas’
She, like other neighbors, remembers that already in the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah one of the rockets fell in the neighborhood. Since then, although they know they live under threat, they had never seen them so close again. “We are at war. This is part of the response to the attacks of the you are looking forChen is referring to the explosion of thousands of Hezbollah personal communications systems on Tuesday and Wednesday in an operation attributed to the Israeli secret service abroad, the Mossad, which left more than 40 dead, thousands wounded and the Lebanese militia knocked out and without reliable means to coordinate the response.
Despite everything, “we have no plans to leave here,” says Chen, because “this is not Kiryat Shmona,” he argues, referring to the Israeli town just two kilometres from the border that is the daily target of attacks from Lebanon and has been almost completely evacuated since the beginning of the conflict. In front of the woman, a carpet of glass and vegetation remains scattered by the explosion. A few metres further on, the small crater of about 50 centimetres left by the projectile, without hitting any of the buildings, all of them two or three stories high, with impacts on their facades. The feeling of the residents is that they are completely absorbed by the conflict, although they show no interest in leaving their place of residence.
In Lebanon, that same week, in what Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called the “new phase” of the war, a missile launched by an Israeli fighter plane leveled a building in Dahiye, in Hezbollah’s Beirut stronghold. Rescue services there found another body in the rubble on Sunday and are still searching for missing people. The Lebanese Ministry of Health puts the death toll at 45, at least 10 of them civilians, including three children. Among the victims was Israel’s main target: Ibrahim Aqil, the leader of Hezbollah’s elite forces, buried, like a dozen other militants, in an atmosphere of more seriousness than revenge.
Back in Haifa, Israel, Simon and Geula repeat “ten seconds.” The phrase comes out of their mouths several times as a way of emphasizing the short period of time that they have been unscathed, in order to celebrate it. The impulse does not lead them to regret at first the material damage to the house or to the small white Fiat in which Simon was going to work. The vehicle is parked at the door, its right side pierced by the impacts and strewn with the remains of leaves and branches from the trees mutilated by the blast wave.
Roof tiles, windows, doors… There is destruction for dozens of metres around amidst the hustle and bustle of police officers, employees assessing damage or security force investigators. The soundtrack is dominated by the noise of excavators removing rubble while cranes arrive to lift the damaged vehicles, some of which are beyond repair.
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