Israel's renovated north, 2007

Ynet photographers return to sites hit and damaged by Hizbullah rockets in summer of 2006. A year later, there is some hope

Haifa – July 17, 2006

In the afternoon hours, a 220-milimeter Katyusha rocket hit the side of a building on Nahalal Street in the Bat Galim neighborhood. A large part of the building's wall collapsed and several people were injured. Luckily, no one was killed.

To see more of this great Photo essay click read more

Photos: Up – Yaron Brener, down – Doron Golan)

Tiberias – August 2, 2006

A rocket directly hit an apartment building on HaShizaf Street, causing it to collapse. The tenants, who were at a bomb shelter at the time, were not hurt. The five families living in the building were evacuated to alternative homes until the building was renovated. In the photo, Tiberias Mayor Zohar Oved.

(Photos: Hagai Aharon)

Safed – July 15 2006

On Saturday at 4 pm, two rockets hit the Maman family home. Upon hearing the air raid siren, the 11 family members entered the house basement. The head of the family, Ya'akov, died several months after the incident as a result of the pressure and anxiety the family suffered. Only now, a year later, the family members are returning to their renovated house.

(Photos: Avihu Shapira)

Haifa – July 21, 2006

On Friday afternoon, a rocket barrage hit the city of Haifa as an air raid siren was sounded. The Post Office building, one of the Hadar neighborhood's commercial symbols, suffered a direct hit.

(Photos: Up –Raanan Ben-Zur, down – Doron Golan)

Haifa – July 16, 2006

Katyusha rockets hit Haifa's crowded industrial zone in the morning hours. One of the rockets directly hit an Israel Railways train depot, killing eight workers. Another rocket landed in the same place several days later.

(Photos: Up – Yael Golan, down – Doron Golan)

Nahariya – July 13, 2006

A woman was killed by a rocket in the morning hours of the war's second day. The Nahariya hospital filled up with injured people – residents and soldiers. President Moshe Katsav visited Nahariya as another barrage landed in the city center. A transformer on an electric pole was hit, while injured people were evacuated from a nearby building under fire.

(Photos: Right - Niv Calderon, left - Doron Golan)

Nazareth – July 19, 2006

The north's Arab population was not spared of bereavement and destruction. The Talussi brothers, 7-year-old Mahmoud and 3-year-old Rabiah, were killed by a rocket while playing in their backyard.

(Photos: Up - Omri Eilat, down - Hagai Aharon)

Meron – July 14, 2006

Friday evening in Moshav Meron. A rocket infiltrates the Pesachov family home. Nahariya resident Yehudit Itzkovitch and her 7-year-old grandson Omer were killed at the Shabbat table.

(Photos: Right - Hagai Ahron, left - Avihu Shapira)

Kiryat Shmona – July 23, 2006

A barrage of about 100 rockets hit northern Israel that day. One of them hit a house on Menachem Begin Street in the Vradim neighborhood. The tenants of the house in the photo left it after the attack nd never returned. Today it is populated by a family of new immigrants.

(Photo: Avihu Shapira)

Nahariya – July 13, 2006

On the second day of the war, workers at the Nahariya hospital began moving the patients underground. The northern hospital is the only one which is fully prepared to continue functioning at a time of emergency, and some of its operation rooms are also located underground. The Ophthalmology Unit, which was directly hit by Katyusha rocket, was not renovated to this day.

(Photos: Up - Niv Calderon, down - Doron Golan)

This article appeared in Ynet News on July 7 2007
Israel's renovated north, 2007

Always Fresh: Israel Bagel
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Jerusalem: The magic of Shavuot 1967

On the morning of Shavuot, June 15, 1967 just 6 days after Jerusalem was Liberated 200,000 Jews converged into Jerusalem to the visit Kotel.

This article is taken from Aish.com

Over the last two millennia, Jews have visited Jerusalem in honor of the festivals, in lieu of the biblically-ordained pilgrimages. On the holiday of Shavuot, there was also the custom to visit the purported grave of King David on Mount Zion, since the date of his death was on Shavuot.

When Shavuot arrived in 1948, it was a month after the establishment of the State of Israel, and Jews could no longer continue to make the pilgrimage to the Western Wall. The Jordanians, who occupied the eastern half of the city since the War of Independence, blocked all rights of passage to the Jews.

However, the pilgrimage to King David's tomb on nearby Mount Zion, located on the Israeli side of divided Jerusalem, continued. Over the next 19 years, crowds made their way to Mount Zion, where across barbed wire they could view the Old City and the Temple Mount.

On the morning of Shavuot, June 15, 1967 -- just six days after the liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem in the Six Day War -- the Old City was officially opened to the Israeli public. (The army wanted to be sure there were no landmines or snipers still in the Old City.) For the first time in almost 2,000 years, masses of Jews could visit the Western Wall and walk through the cherished streets of Judaism's capital city as members of the sovereign Jewish nation. Each Jew who ventured to the Western Wall on that unforgettable day was realizing their ancestors' dreams over the millennia. It was one of those rare, euphoric moments in history.

From the late hours of the night, thousands of Jerusalem residents streamed toward the Zion gate, eagerly awaiting entry into the Old City. At 4 a.m., the accumulating crowds were finally allowed to enter the area of the Western Wall. As the sun continued to rise, there was a steady flow of thousands who made their way to the Old City.

The Jerusalem Post described the epic scene:

Every section of the population was represented. Kibbutz members and soldiers rubbing shoulders with Neturei Karta. Mothers came with children in prams, and old men trudged steeply up Mount Zion, supported by youngsters on either side, to see the wall of the Temple before the end of their days.

Some wept, but most faces were wreathed in smiles. For 13 continuous hours, a colorful variety of all peoples trudged along in perfect order, stepping patiently when told to do so at each of six successive barriers set up by the police to regulate the flow.

In total, 200,000 visited the Western Wall that day. It was the first pilgrimage, en masse, of Jews to Jewish-controlled Jerusalem on a Jewish festival in 2,000 years, since the pilgrimages for the festivals in Temple times.

An eyewitness described the moment:

"I've never known so electric an atmosphere before or since. Wherever we stopped, we began to dance. Holding aloft Torah scrolls we swayed and danced and sang at the tops of our voices. So many of the Psalms and songs are about Jerusalem and Zion, and the words reached into us a new life. As the sky lightened, we reached the Zion gate. Still singing and dancing, we poured into the narrow alleyways beyond."

On Shavuot, 3,279 years earlier, the Israelites stood at Mount Sinai and forged a unique relationship with their Creator. On the day of Shavuot following Israel's amazing victory in the Six Day War, multitudes ascended to the Western Wall, and they, too, felt the eternal magic of this moment. After all, "For from Zion shall come forth Torah, and the Word of God from Jerusalem."

This "pedestrian pilgrimage" has now become a recurring tradition. And on this year as well, early on Shavuot morning - after a full night of Torah learning -- the streets of Jerusalem will be filled with tens of thousands of Jews, walking with and anticipation and awe to the Western Wall.

Published Aish.com on 13 May 2007

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