The heads of northern border communities have hit their limit with ongoing but largely failed political and diplomatic maneuvering aimed at avoiding all-out war with Hezbollah – and possibly Iran.
Moshe Davidovitz, David Azoulai and Giura Zaltz, heads of northern border authorities, announced Sunday they are “ceasing communication with all government officials until a full and complete solution is reached for the residents and children of the northern border.”
The three community heads said that such a solution must include “full security for the return of the evacuees to their homes, guaranteeing the safety of all residents and approval of an economic plan for the rehabilitation of the north.”
Contending that the government has had no interest in their communities for ten and a half months, the authority heads declared, “From now on we are not interested in you.
“Don’t call, don’t come, don’t send messages,” they told government officials. “We’ve managed on our own so far; we’ll manage on our own.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met this past June in Jerusalem with the mayors and heads of northern Israeli communities in Jerusalem to discuss the needs of the residents who at that point had been evacuated from their homes for over seven months.
That same month, the government approved the appointment of former Israeli Navy Commander Rear-Admiral (ret.) Eliezer Marom, to be the director general of the government’s efforts to rehabilitate Israeli communities in northern Israel.
But plans don’t mean much if they are not carried out, and it is impossible to build or otherwise develop a region that is under constant, daily attack.
Talks Every Few Months
In May, the prime minister pledged to restore security to northern Israel at a meeting with municipal heads from northern border communities that was described by Hebrew-language media as “stormy.” The community leaders wanted to know when their residents would be able to return home safely.
Netanyahu instructed the directors general at the Prime Minister’s Office and the Finance Ministry to meet with the regional heads to bridge the “minor remaining gaps” and present him with an agreed-upon plan to return displaced Israelis to their homes and compensate them and their communities within a week’s time.
Did that happen? It’s not clear.
“In the end, the revival and the momentum of the northern border depend on security,” Netanyahu told the community heads at the meeting in May. “I am not going to tell Hezbollah what we are going to do, I will not share with our sworn enemy the dates and how exactly we are going to do it,” he said.
That was, as seen above, in May. Now August is coming to an end, and security for Israeli in the north is still far from certain.
As far back as last November, Netanyahu met with the heads of northern border regional councils to reassure them and hear their concerns. Those community leaders talked about the essential need for the continued implementation of the plan for structural reinforcement in the north, including budgeting.
In response, he prime minister “expressed his appreciation for the strong stand” and the efforts of the council heads “while following the directives of IDF Home Front Command and the security agencies,” Netanyahu’s office said following the meeting.
Concrete plans for rehabilitation of the area and the return of its residents did not come up. It’s fair to say that at that point, it was too early.
But next week the school year begins for most of Israel. In the north, students will probably be hunkering down with their parents in bomb shelters and stairwells thanks to rockets and drones still being fired by Hezbollah, with no end in sight.
It’s been nearly a year with constant reassurances of finding a diplomatic solution to that reality “or by another way if necessary,” as repeatedly pledged by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Sunday morning’s preemptive Israeli Air Force strike on thousands of rockets primed for launch from southern Lebanon, however, was the first time the IDF was finally ordered to take significant, massive action to eliminate the threat.
Sadly, it appears the strike was approved because the primed rocket launchers that were destroyed were aimed at strategic targets in central Israel, including in Tel Aviv, as well as in northern Israel.
Had the rockets been aimed only at northern Israel, would the massive strike by nearly 100 Israeli fighter pilots still have been a “go”?
