KIRYAT SHMONA, Israel — On Monday morning, this northern Galilee town looked like the Pied Piper had come through and rounded up all the children. There were none in sight.
They could be found playing backgammon underground in the bomb shelters. Kicking a ball against its heavy iron doors. Rolled up in a blanket on a fold-down metal cot watching a video.
It was hours before Purim in this border town and the children knew they would be marking another holiday in the bunkers.
“They pulled one over on us,” 11-year-old Shimon said. “They promised us a Purim carnival and parade today. And what do we get? We have to spend our day in the bomb shelter.”
The fifth-grader tossed his soccer ball to his friend near the opening of the bomb shelter where they had ventured. His costume of a Hapoel Haifa soccer player had been tossed aside in his bedroom upstairs. He didn’t know where. He didn’t care.
Ben, 11, had been planning to dress up as a punk rocker and head over to the mall where posters around town promised a Purim carnival, a costume parade and surprises for the kids.
“It’s canceled. Everything is canceled,” said Ben as he gave a swift kick to his soccer ball right into a cement wall.
“The children wait for Purim the whole year and now it’s gone, ruined. We can’t celebrate Purim next week, can we? And they can’t very well dress up in the shelters because in the bomb shelters no one sees you, so what’s the point?” said Miriam Bar, mother of a 13-year-old “witch” and a 4-year-old “Batman.”
Among those in the shelter was a group of young volunteers from the Bay Area who have been living and working in Kiryat Shmona since December. They are participants in Project Otzma, a 10-month national fellowship program.
This week marked the second time they slept in the shelters since arriving in Kiryat Shmona, the partner city of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation.
The first time, Katyusha rockets had been fired from Lebanon into northern Israel in retaliation for the deaths of seven Lebanese civilians killed when an Israeli pilot bombed the wrong building.
“This second time in the bomb shelter affected me much differently than the first one did,” 23-year-old Norm Cappell wrote in an e-mail. “The first one was exciting and almost a fun way to begin. It was the result of an Israeli airstrike and not a full conflict.”
This time, northern Israel was on high alert following a Hezbollah bombing that killed four Israelis in southern Lebanon and during Israel’s retaliatory attacks.
Those deaths made staying in the bomb shelter a somber experience for Cappell, a graduate of U.C. Berkeley.
“The simple fact was we were in there because there was a war and only now after three months of life on the border do I really appreciate what that means,” he wrote, noting the recent Israeli deaths. “Most likely they died painfully. And this is a small country. I’ve met people who served under one of them.”
Otzma volunteer Dan Hegwer, 24, also experienced the bombings in a very personal way.
“We are now part of the region and are more involved in the daily goings on,” the San Jose State University graduate wrote in an e-mail. “Blood runs thick in this tiny country and I am part of it for the time being.”
The Otzma volunteers left the region Wednesday as previously planned. They will move on to various parts of the country to work and study.
Although Israel required Kiryat Shmona residents to move into shelters, Amos Shimshon said he didn’t need to force his kids to stay in them. They were experiencing anxiety themselves. They had even started wetting the bed again, he said.
Yosef Stapher agreed that children know fear all too well.
“The children of Kiryat Shmona can tell the difference between outgoing artillery and incoming rockets. And they fear it. We don’t have to force them to stay in the shelters. They’ve seen the damage those rockets can cause,” the 49-year-old said.
In Kiryat Shmona, residents may disagree on what has to be done regarding Israel’s presence in Lebanon, but they all expressed some sort of opinion that living under siege has become intolerable.
“It’s not the Katyushas,” Shimshon said. “They rarely kill. It’s the blow to the morale. It’s the feeling of coming home and finding it a burned-out ruin.”