Israeli cities on the border with Lebanon have turned into ghost towns after tens of thousands evacuated to escape fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants. In Kiryat Shmona, one of the largest northern cities, only a few civilians remain.
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00:00It's lunchtime in Kiryat Shmonar. Sergio Helman makes hummus for his customers.
00:07Nowadays, most of the people who come are Israeli soldiers.
00:11I think this is my part in this work, to be here for the soldiers, for the citizens when they stay here.
00:22I can be in the army and this is what I know to do.
00:27This is my profession and I love my profession.
00:32Civilians are few and far between. Sergio is one of the few local residents who's still here,
00:39just a few kilometres from the border with Lebanon.
00:43Daily life here includes rocket, missile and drone attacks from Hezbollah.
00:48They're so close that an air raid warning only gives people 10 seconds to get to safety.
00:53Only a few days ago, two people were killed here in a barrage of rocket fire.
00:59Driving through the city, you can see the effect all that is having.
01:04This is one of the main roundabouts in Kiryat Shmonar and in normal times it would be bustling with cars.
01:09But now the streets are virtually deserted, you only really see military vehicles around here.
01:14Most residents have evacuated the area, turning this city essentially into a ghost town.
01:21We meet Ariel Frisch at a site where a rocket hit earlier this year.
01:26He's the deputy head of security for the municipality.
01:30He asked us not to show his face, for his own safety.
01:34Evacuation is the biggest win for Hezbollah.
01:37He never could have ever dreamed as a terror organisation of a better way to achieve a victory
01:44by striking fear for a great number of population.
01:48And this is why he always aimed in Kiryat Shmonar to the civilian areas,
01:52in order to strike fear in the residents that they will not dare to come back.
01:58Asked whether he thought politicians could stop the violence,
02:01he referred to a United Nations resolution meant to stop hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah after the 2006 war.
02:09We saw a lot of political solutions in the past.
02:12The main problem of political solutions is that there is no enforcement
02:18that will ensure that the solution will be kept.
02:23You can see the 1701 resolution was a resolution that Israel kept its side, but Hezbollah didn't.
02:30So what will be different on the next solution?
02:35The fear and mistrust is such that recent polls suggest
02:38only half of people who have left Kiryat Shmonar want to return home when the fighting is over.
02:45Sergio Helman pins his hopes on the Israeli army pushing Hezbollah and its specialist forces from the area.
02:52I think the army now does what all the citizens of the Upper Galilee want.
03:01Clean the front, the border from the Eraduan and Hezbollah.
03:10We need to clean, clean. We don't want to be, we want to live.
03:16The big question is whether Israel's soldiers can make local civilians feel like it's safe enough to return.