Northern Israel Awaits Further Hezbollah Attacks

Residents in the area were afraid they would be targeted even before Hezbollah launched over 100 rockets, cruise missiles, and drones toward northern Israel on Sunday.

Israel’s missile defense system successfully intercepted the majority of the missiles fired throughout the night. However, at least one hit a residential area in Kiryat Bialik early on Sunday morning, causing automobiles to catch fire, severely injuring six houses, breaking windows, and expanding the region of the nation that believes it is under attack from Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In the northern outskirts of Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, sits Kiryat Bialik, a hamlet dotted with tangerine trees laden with fruit, home to some 45,000 people. Even before Sunday’s attack, the locals there felt exposed due to the recent escalation of attacks between Israeli armed forces and Hezbollah members.

However, following Israel’s bombing on southern Beirut on Friday that claimed the lives of multiple senior Hezbollah commanders, some felt it was just a matter of time until their village was targeted.

Yana Klibaner, 40, a tourism advisor who lives on the street where the missile struck, said, “I had a bad feeling that the next step would be rocket fire deeper than what we have seen up until.”

Early on Sunday morning, Ms. Klibaner listened as blasts approached her bed. At last, “just before the sirens sounded,” she arose, gathered her two younger children, and hurried to their home’s bomb bunker beside her older daughter.

She remarked, “We felt the blast coming from the street, and glass shattered all around us.”

According to a representative for Rambam Hospital in Haifa, most residents were able to flee to secure rooms or subterranean bunkers as a result of the warning sirens, and just three persons needed medical attention.