Israel urges settlers to leave after rocket attack

An Israeli official called on Wednesday for the remaining settlers in Kiryat Shmona near the Lebanese border to evacuate following a barrage of rockets fired by Hezbollah, Anadolu has reported. Around 20 rockets were launched from Lebanon towards the settlement earlier in the day, killing two Israelis, according to the Israeli emergency service Magen David Adom.

Hezbollah said that it had targeted a gathering of enemy forces in the Kiryat Shmona settlement with a rocket salvo in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and in defence of Lebanon and its people.

Kiryat Shmona was established in 1949 on the ruins of the Palestinian village of Al-Khalisa, which was destroyed and its inhabitants displaced in the 1948 Nakba. The settlement’s economy is driven by consumer-focused products such as telecommunications, information technology and electronics, in addition to agriculture in surrounding areas and tourism.

Israel Army Radio quoted an unnamed spokesman for the Kiryat Shmwa Municipality as saying: “We were afraid this would happen all along. Today we have 2,000 people in Shmona Kiryat, 2,000 people too many. We ask them to leave the city.”

Kiryat Shmona is among dozens of settlements from which the Israeli army has instructed residents to evacuate since the start of the genocide in Gaza in October last year. In January, Yediot Ahronoth (Ynet) reported that only 3,000 of the settlement’s 24,000 residents remained. In July, Israel’s Channel 7 quoted Kiryat Shmona Mayor Avihai Stern as saying that, “Fourteen per cent of residents have decided not to return to the city.”

Israel has been waging war on Lebanon since 23 September with unprecedented intensive and deadly air raids. It has even targeted the capital, Beirut, alongside ground incursions that began a week ago in the south, ignoring international warnings and UN resolutions.

According to official figures as of Tuesday, Israel has killed 2,119 people and wounded 10,019 since the beginning of cross-border exchanges of fire with Hezbollah on 8 October last year. A significant number of the casualties are women and children. More than 1.2 million have been displaced.

Hezbollah continues to retaliate daily with rockets, drones and artillery targeting military sites and settlements. While Israel has acknowledged some of its losses, military censorship has imposed strict control over the reporting of most incidents, say observers.

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