Israel evacuates Kiryat Shemona, town of 20,000 near Lebanon
A woman and a girl hold pet carriers and other belongings as they prepare to depart from Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon, Oct. 19, 2023. (Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images)
(JTA) — Israel is evacuating Kiryat Shemona, a town of more than 20,000 people near Israel’s border with Lebanon, following repeated exchanges of fire with the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah and ahead of a planned ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.
The announcement early Friday comes after nearly two weeks of combat with Hamas on the Gaza border in Israel’s south, and after ongoing clashes with Hezbollah in which there have been casualties on both sides of Israel’s northern border. For days, Israel has been on the verge of an incursion into Gaza, and seeks to prevent the conflict from escalating on its other fronts.
Like Hamas, Hezbollah is backed by Iran, and has intensified its engagement with Israel since Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, but the exchange of rocket fire has not yet escalated into a full scale conflagration.
Israel recently evacuated the area surrounding the Gaza border, including much of the 30,000-resident city of Sderot. The country had some 60,000 internal refugees before the Kiryat Shmona evacuation. Kiryat Shemona, barely over a mile from the Lebanese border, has been a main target for Hezbollah rocket fire in past wars.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
