In video: The IDF attacked several targets of the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanese territory / IDF Spokesman
The former mayor of Kiryat Shmona, Prosper Azran, called today (Thursday) in a conversation with Walla!
conquer southern Lebanon and expect that a quarter of the residents of Kiryat Shmona will not return to their homes.
According to him, only "occupation of southern Lebanon and expulsion of Hezbollah terrorists north of the Litani River" will ensure life in the north of the country and the continued existence of the State of Israel in the Middle East.
Azran, the 74-year-old, headed the municipality of Kiryat Shmona in 1983-1997, the longest tenure at the head of the municipality, during the years when the city suffered from many cases of rocket fire from Lebanon.
Unlike most of the city's residents who were evacuated from their homes, Azran insists on staying in his home and has severe criticism of the decision to evacuate the residents: "All these years we went down to shelters when it was necessary, what has changed? Why did we build shelters, so that we could run away from here? It is true that in the beginning there was a market following what happened in the south, But Kiryat Shmona was evacuated only two weeks later, when it was clear that terrorists would no longer penetrate here. There is also a threat to Haifa, Acre, Safed and Nahariya, so will these cities be evacuated as well?"
"All these years we went down to the shelters when it was necessary, what has changed?"
Prosper Azran/official website, Erez Ben Simon
Azran predicts that when the day comes, many of the evacuated residents will not return to live in Kiryat Shmona.
"I estimate that a quarter of the evacuees will not return already, people moved to the center and learned that there is life outside of Kiryat Shmona," he said.
"People who never thought of leaving and now see that it is possible to live somewhere else and in better conditions - a health system, education, cultural life at a higher level. Why would they return to Kiryat Shmona?"
"In the meantime, they announced that the evacuation is being extended until the end of February, and I expect it to continue at least until July. Those who will live close to a year outside their home, will already begin to acclimatize in a new settlement, their children will meet new friends and adapt to other schools," continued the former mayor.
Azran said that he is talking to residents who are afraid to return both for fear of being hurt and because, according to them, after what happened in the southern settlements, they no longer trust the state to protect them.
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Soldiers at the Lebanese border/Reuters
"My friend who was in the border guard is afraid to go to Kiryat Shmona to get clothes, I don't leave here. I don't even go to visit my grandchildren who are in Tiberias," he explained.
His daughter-in-law and her four children, his grandchildren, have remained in Kiryat Shmona since the war began.
"They study at home alone, their mother is strict and doesn't give up. It's possible, even in Australia they study like that, and in any case, does anyone who applies really study in an organized education system? Of course not."
Azran is mainly angry about the military policy on the northern front, he defines the war as "strange".
According to him, the security strip is within the sovereign territory of Israel: "This is not something that is acceptable in the military tactics that I know, if we do not enter the campaign inside Lebanon, we are actually announcing that we are giving up a ten kilometer strip inside the territory of Israel."
"Do you really believe that it is possible to reach an agreement under which members of the Radwan force will leave their homes and move north of Litani? Each of them is a soldier who was born there and his home has weapons and missiles. He goes to work in the morning and returns home in the evening, he will not agree to leave his home," stated Azran.
"Submission is not a concept that is acceptable to me, in war you kill or deport and take the land - this is war. After being conquered, the Litani will be the northern border and to the south of it will be an army and a Jewish settlement of loyalists of Israel, not to leave outposts on isolated islands as was the case in the security strip in southern Lebanon before the withdrawal. If this does not happen, we have no right to exist. How much longer will we continue to defend ourselves, how many more iron caps and arrows will we invent?"
More on the same topic:
Kiryat Shmona
Hezbollah
Gaza war
War of Iron Swords