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A City of Missiles

September 3, 2024

No siren sounded as Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy terror army entrenched in southern Lebanon, launched a 107mm mortar at the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona on October 25. The mortar easily found its mark as it cut clean through the cement wall of a quiet suburban home and slammed into the kitchen. It tore a massive crater in the floor and exploded into a fireball, which sparked a secondary detonation with the home’s gas supply. Within a split second, the three-bedroom home was a raging inferno, belching clouds of black smoke over the shaking neighborhood.

While the fire engulfed the house, not a single soul emerged from the neighboring homes to investigate the destruction. In the distance, sirens wailed as firetrucks converged on the location of the missile strike to extinguish the blaze and prevent the fire from spreading to the rest of the neighborhood.

Members of the rapid response team and Home Front Command arrived on site next, along with the city mayor, a young man named Avichai. Despite the commotion, the streets and backyards surrounding the inferno remained eerily empty. No concerned neighbors raced over to lend a helping hand. In fact, every front door remained firmly shut.

The reason? The city of Kiryat Shmona, which had once boasted a population of 24,000, had been emptied of its citizens, reduced to a remnant of only 2,000 inhabitants. Five days before the Hezbollah mortar found its mark, the mayor had ordered an evacuation. With that, 22,000 Israelis scattered across more than 500 locations around the country to avoid the constant barrages of Hezbollah’s missiles, suicide drones and mortars.

The order to evacuate was a painful, yet practical choice, remembers Avichai. The city did not have enough bomb shelters to keep its residents safe from the barrages and so, the main concern focused on saving lives. However, with such an order, Avichai knew he was giving Hezbollah exactly what they wanted: to terrorize the lives of Israelis, causing them to flee and thus providing the terror army free reign to destroy and invade the Upper Galilee.

Avichai had chosen to stay, along with the security teams and the die-hard Israelis who refused to give up. Yet it came at a cost for Avichai personally, as he had to make the agonizing decision to send his wife and children abroad.

When the Bridges for Peace team visited on August 5, Kiryat Shmona was a battered remnant of its former glory. We arrived to the nearly empty ghost city, narrowly missing a Hezbollah missile barrage 20 minutes earlier. Every restaurant, café and mall was closed. Traffic lights flashed perpetually yellow. Every now and then, a lone car drove by. Instead of the usual, bustling activity beholden to a city, it was eerie and quiet.

The Iron Dome defenses in the north had already intercepted 1,400 missiles destined to wrought untold destruction on Kiryat Shmona, yet 700 projectiles had still managed to get through, reducing homes, industrial centers, football pitches, streets, cars and anything else in their path into sights of apocalyptic devastation. Razor sharp shrapnel from exploded rockets lay everywhere, prompting Avichai to hand me a piece of the disturbing “souvenir” as he said, “Here! Now you can remember what we go through every day.”

We had met Avichai earlier, along with the heads of the security team, in a fortified bomb shelter beneath the city’s municipal building. Feeling more like a bunker, the Bridges for Peace team felt safe from the daily threat of missile fire. Avichaitook his time explaining his city to us. He focused on the 4.3-mile (7-km.) north-to-south Lebanon border with a high mountain ridge of forests where the explosive charges of missiles impacted among the trees and brush, sparking large wildfires that threatened to consume the city. The residents of Kiryat Shmona had been forced to become experts in firefighting, some using garden hoses or buckets of water to tirelessly support the skeleton fire crews who buckled under the load.

When we left the bunker to tour the city, Avichai took us up to an observation point where we could see Lebanon 1.2 miles (2 km.) away. “Hezbollah simply fires mortars and rockets at us from just over the ridge,” he explained. “If the sirens sound, we have 10 seconds to run to shelter. That’s if the sirens sound…”

We took in the awful sights of destroyed homes and melted cars, knowing full well that once Israeli residents returned—if they decided to come back at all—many lives would be changed forever as countless properties and businesses had been reduced to charred, hollow remains.

It was an emotional and disturbing day, seeing the pain on the faces of the remnant that remained in Kiryat Shmona. We listened to their stories as they shared their hearts. An entire city devastated. But a powerful and penetrating light had shone through that day. It happened the moment the Bridges for Peace team had stared straight into Avichai’s eyes and promised that he and his people were not alone. Christians from around the world are praying for them. Moreover, Christian volunteers from the nations are serving inside Israel, while it remains surrounded by enemies baying for its destruction. And we would not back down! We were here to stay and Kiryat Shmona would experience our practical love and support.

Would you please consider giving to our Crisis Assistance Fund today to be a penetrating light of hope into the city of Kiryat Shmona and its mayor, Avichai?

 

With urgency,
Rev. Peter Fast
International CEO

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