"Kiryat Shmona" is the most famous Israeli settlement in the ongoing confrontations between Israel and Hezbollah since the outbreak of the Gaza war last October. It has recently emerged as a target for 70 rockets, with anticipation surrounding Tel Aviv's response.
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged attacks across the border; Israel carried out two airstrikes targeting the towns of Yater and Yaroun in the Bint Jbeil area of southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah targeted the Israeli town of Metula, which contains a military area, with a drone loaded with explosives. This followed Hezbollah's bombardment of the Kiryat Shmona settlement in northern Israel with approximately 70 rockets. In a statement, Hezbollah announced that the rocket fire aimed to support the Palestinian people in Gaza and was a response to the killing of a woman, her husband, and their son in an Israeli strike on the Lebanese town of Houla.
What do we know about "Kiryat Shmona"?
- It is a settlement in northern Israel near the Lebanese border, and its name means "eight." It was established in 1949 on the ruins of a Palestinian village after the inhabitants were displaced and seized by Zionist Haganah gangs.
- The settlement was initially populated by 14 Yemenite Jews, and the population quickly rose to 4,000 by 1951, reaching 22,336 by 2021, most of whom came from Morocco.
- Due to its location, it has become a target for Palestinian factions residing in Lebanon, and later for rockets from Hezbollah. Palestinian factions attacked it with Katyusha rockets in 1981 and 1986; Hezbollah bombarded it with Katyushas during "Operation Grapes of Wrath" in 1996, again in 1999, and during the 2006 war, during which the settlement became ghostly after most of its inhabitants abandoned it; it was bombarded with 1,012 rockets.
