At the entrance to Tiberias, a school is currently being built for the children of the evacuees. The state invested NIS 22 million in the school, which will take five weeks to build. As early as next week, 1,000 students in grades 36-18 will attend, <> classrooms, <> safe rooms, and a large investment in the small details.
The moment of the attack on Kiryat Shmona
"We are preparing until the end of the school year," says Boaz Yosef, the mayor in charge of Tiberias, as he tours the site. And he knows what he's talking about. In Tiberias, 11,3 evacuees were absorbed, including 000,1 children. "Our schools have 100,20 students, which is <>% of the students in the city, and the rest in localities in the area."
However, while the government has extended the period of evacuation of residents of the north until 29 February, it is preparing for a long stay and understands that residents of the north will remain outside their homes at least until the summer. In the meantime, it is extending the evacuation every month, and many residents of the north are preparing accordingly for long stays. 60,26 people were sent to hotels in the north. <>,<> remain, and every day more families leave looking for homes in the area.
New school, photo: Eyal Margolin-Ginni
In a conversation with one of the residents who left the hotel, he says: "People have to understand that you have to take your feet and build a life in a new place. This will last at least until the summer, and if you want to have a family properly, it is impossible to do it in a hotel room. As far as the children are concerned, this is also a crisis. Every day another child leaves. People assimilate in other places, it will be very difficult for them to come back."
It is impossible to live in the lobby
Liron and Jonathan Davis from Metula found a home in Kibbutz Amiad. "We're leaving in a week," they say, "there's a lot of desire from the community. They invest in us, they prepare kindergartens, and the teachers come from far and wide to stay and teach the children. There are sessions at the hotel in the afternoon. But in the end, all this does not change the fact that our lives have been going on in the hotel lobby for three months now. There is no sense of progress or horizon, and there is no way to go on with life once the children are not in full frameworks. Just last week, three children left a class of 12 Metula children. The community is starting to fall apart."
At the beginning of the war, residents of Kiryat Shmona were evacuated to the Lakehouse Hotel in Tiberias, which was joined a month later by residents of Metula. Initially, the hotel's educational systems were based on the children of Metula, and the rest of the children were added to the activity. Now only three children from the colony remain in the relocated dormitory, and the rest are children from Kiryat Shmona.
Residents leaving the north, photo: Eyal Margolin-Ginni
If at the beginning of the war more than 80% of Metula's residents evacuated to hotels, today only 25% of them remain. The rest found other solutions, and most rented apartments across the country. It's not just the strong communities – the situation is similar in all the northern communities. The Upper Galilee Regional Council reports that in the past month alone, a quarter of all hotel residents have left.
In Kiryat Shmona, the situation is slightly different. Of the 20,75 residents who evacuated, 15%, or 12,<> residents, were evacuated to hotels across the country. Now, according to municipal records, only <>,<> residents remain.
Damage to a house in the north,
Omri Hajag, director of the Communities Division of the Upper Galilee Regional Council, says: "Slowly, the families are starting to leave. The community leaders were nervous at first that the community might be falling apart. We checked why they were leaving and found that it wasn't a problem with the hotel or the kibbutz, but rather families who wanted their privacy. You want to open the refrigerator at home, eat what and when you want. The communities do community activities once in a while as well as Zoom meetings, in an attempt to keep the community scattered.
"Even if tomorrow they say the event is over, the children have gotten used to kindergarten and classroom and will flow by the end of the year. Then we'll see how to bring them home. We must remember that we have communities that need to be rehabilitated, and the event is not over yet. There is concern that people will taste new communities and physically distance themselves from the community. We try to give the communities the tools to deal with the situation and keep the community asking and interested. We do community resilience training for managers that help them direct things and hold joint cultural events."
At the beginning of the war, some of the kibbutz residents were scattered in several hotels. Some were sent to cities - which made it difficult for those used to living in a rural landscape. "Since the beginning of December, about 1,000 people have left during the month, or a quarter of those staying in hotels," Hajaj says. "We only have about 3,500 people in hotels now, and the rest are scattered. We are seeing a more accelerated trend of leaving. Our pyramid of needs has changed. At first we wanted a place to land where it was safe, then we wanted frames, and now we need privacy and independent ability."
Hajag is also concerned about the education systems. "In the schools, students were assigned according to regions, but in early childhood education they set up a framework in every hotel, even if it belongs to several localities. There is concern that at some point the number of children will drop below the level at which the Ministry of Education operates kindergartens. Fortunately, we haven't reached that yet, but we understand that it may get there."
So what do we do?
"We understand that you can't create certainty of times – you can only create certainty of stages. We know that at some point the state will say that the incident in the north is over, and then we will see how we will restore services to the residents and how we will manage with those who remained outside."
"We are changing our thinking," an educational source in one of the communities told us. "Every day a family leaves. I reckon we will stay with ten families at the hotel. Even if we return before the end of the school year, at least a third of the residents will not return by the end of the school year. How do you maintain education systems in this situation? I'm not talking about the fact that if there is fighting, there will be many families who will have nowhere to return because of the damage to their homes. The longer it goes on, the harder it will be for people to return to the community, because they will get used to living in the new community."
How do you prepare?
"We are considering closing the education systems at the hotel, because the services there are not provided to residents of our authority, but to other authorities. The state does not pay attention to this. The day after is here, it has arrived, and in the north there is no reference to the situation of the communities."
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