I have to admit, I was anxious when the train carriages in front of and behind me were devoid of travelers and the only other person was the security guard making his rounds. The train was taking me to Haifa, the largest city in northern Israel, which had been attacked by Hezbollah rockets a day prior.
I have been to Haifa in previous years, but this time I felt uneasy. The city looked abandoned.
When I arrived at the station, the only other travelers were soldiers armed with M16s and Uzis. Did I stumble into an active military base, I thought to myself.
In the past year, residents of northern Israel evacuated south, while those who stayed faced the uncertainty of the escalating situation.
Leaving for the bus station, the sidewalks outside of the main terminal were barren. Stores were closed and the only open restaurant in the middle of the day was a McDonald’s on the second floor of a seemingly vacant mall.
The next stop on my journey was a kibbutz where I would speak with locals who stayed behind. This particular kibbutz (which I have omitted for security reasons) recently fell victim to a rocket attack.
After taking two trains and a bus, I met my guide, who then drove me the rest of the way to the kibbutz.
When we arrived, he graciously offered to take me on a tour of the complex, where we visited the residential halls, shared community spaces, and the local school. My guide also made sure to point out the bomb shelters as we walked by, rating them based on which were the coziest and had the best food.
“A fun fact,” he joked, “is that during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, some of the bomb shelters were also supplied with assault rifles and grenades in case the kibbutz was raided.”
He added that the weapons were later removed after more than a decade of collecting dust because the local council deemed them unnecessary and too dangerous.
This year, the kibbutz banned large group gatherings and canceled the annual fireworks celebrations because it was too triggering.
The kibbutz was also in view of an airfield. The locals used to sit on the hill right outside kibbutz’s fence and count jets as they flew by.
These days, there are too many to count.
At the end of the tour, I was offered a room for the night by locals who were excited to see a visitor. I was told that it was too dangerous to travel long distances after dark because of the nightly attacks.
In the last few nights, the kibbutz had experienced rocket attacks and they were anticipating another within the next 12 hours. They urged me to pack my bag and download the Red Alert app because I would not be able to hear the emergency siren located on the other side of the kibbutz.
Being this far north meant we would likely have only 30 seconds to get out of bed, grab our things, and sprint across the street to the nearest bomb shelter. That night, I slept fully dressed and with one eye open, preparing for the imminent attack.
The jets buzzing overhead only worsened my paranoia. With each jet that rattled my room, I inched closer to the door until my legs were completely off the bed.
At daybreak, I hastily woke up to the sound of my phone’s alarm clock only to realize that nothing had happened. I washed my zombified face in the bathroom sink and dragged myself down the road to the mess hall where I met the others for breakfast.
The morning also had its share of tension.
While we ate, we were accompanied by the sounds of the roaring jets and fully automatic gunfire coming from the airfield down the road. When I mentioned that the jets made it difficult for me to sleep, I was assured that everyone else had slept fine.
The locals decided that since the siren had not sounded last night, it would be safe for us to travel this morning. Still groggy and waiting for my breakfast to kick in, I loaded my pre-packed gear into the trunk of the sedan, and a group of us headed for the train station.
But terror soon washed over us.
Five minutes after leaving the kibbutz’s main gate, our phones began violently alerting us to an incoming rocket attack. The driver slammed on the brakes and pulled the car over, stopping by a small brush on the side of the highway. We rushed out of the car and dove over the guardrail, laying our heads on the dry pine needles and bracing for impact.
With the sound of the Red Alert sirens coming from all directions, we looked over our shoulders to make sure we were all prepared. None of them had ever been outside the kibbutz during an attack; typically, they would wait it out in a bomb shelter. But this time, there was no shelter to run to.
Within 30 seconds of the alerts beginning, we heard loud thuds above our heads. Several seconds later, the sounds were coming from all corners of the sky, including from above the kibbutz we just left.
Peering over my shoulder, I traced a white streak of smoke coming from an exploded rocket to a forest down the road. From there, I watched an interceptor fly upward from the tree line to collide with a rocket above a neighboring kibbutz.
After a few more seconds, the emergency sirens subsided but the thuds continued. The only thing we could do was stay down and wait helplessly as shrapnel rained down from the sky.
The entire encounter lasted several minutes, but the feeling of vulnerability lingered. When it finally ended, we nervously cheered, trying not to jinx another attack.
We stood up, wiped the pine needles from our cloths, and shuffled into the car to continue the drive to the train station.
Whether in Haifa or the kibbutz, we could have been attacked by rockets at any time. But having it happen when there were no bomb shelters to run to emphasizes how prepared residents in northern Israel have to be. The psychological stress has made it difficult for life to return to any sort of pre-conflict normalcy. The escalating situation between Israel and Hezbollah created an environment that is unsustainable for those who stayed behind.
Itay is a Middle Eastern political analyst and researcher from Israel. He has written about armed conflicts, regional politics, and foreign elections. This story in particular is based on his experience traveling through northern Israel in September of 2024.