When the State turns its back

Normally a lively city of 58,000 residents, a sparse 10,000 to 12,000 people remain in Nahariya after thousands decided to take refuge further south, away from the constant threat of rockets. The residents who have stayed on in northern towns and cities live in constant fear and lacking almost all necessary services. And Nahariya is not alone. Residents have disappeared from Kiryat Shmona, Carmiel, Safed, the Krayot and countless more northern communities, and the remaining few are in a tough spot.

At the beginning of the week a team of coordinators from the Movement for Progressive Judaism went up north. The staff's coordinator, Sharona Yekutiel, described how the team went from apartment to apartment and simple started knocking on doors. The scenes they discovered in a number of the flats was very difficult.

"In Maalot, for example, we found someone connected to oxygen, and she couldn't even go down to the shelter. Her 11-year-old grandson was taking care of her," Yekutiel related. Another elderly man they found with his shirt covered in blood, because he had had a blood test a few days earlier and it apparently didn't heal properly.

Shelter in Carmiel (Photo: AP) 

The staff encountered many blind, elderly or disabled people, alone and unable to reach the bomb shelters. "Some of them, when we entered their homes, they started to cry. We held them and hugged them and gave them as much as we could."

After 58 years of wars, battles and confrontations, it is difficult to believe that none of Israel's governments thought to establish an emergency plan for the northern front. And when the war broke out, many were left to fend for themselves. The state simply turned its shoulder.

Mayor of Maalot-Tarshicha and Chairman of the Forum of Frontlines Communities, Shlomo Buhbut, charged that one of the Israeli governments' mistakes was never installing a civilian emergency protocol.

"As soon as there is war, they know how to attack this or that base, they know how many tanks and cannons are needed, but in the civilian arena, there is no boss in charge of these things. They're trying to solve these problems as the war rages," he said.

Buhbut's conclusion echoes that of many of the teams operating in the past month on the field – from volunteer groups to city mayors. "We as city leaders will pressure the government to set up an organized portfolio, so in an emergency we'll know exactly what to do. So the post office and bank will be open a few hours. So that we'll be organized and won't be shooting from the hip."

Where is the State? What really is the situation in the field? Activists from social organizations tell Ynet what they have done for the northern residents, and the difficult scenes they encountered. And they all turn to the government with the same question: Where are you?

No state? There are organizations

Over the past month, dozens of organizations, mostly on a volunteer basis, have gone to the frontlines in the north to provide residents with basic necessities from water to food to installing air conditioners in bomb shelters.

"In effect, in the first two weeks of the war the government didn't even wake up," Dudi Zilbershlag, chairman of social organization 'Israel-B'Yahad', said, charging that the government completely neglected northern civilians.

"You would expect from the state that everything is planned, that if there is a war, you open up drawer 33, for example, labeled 'War' and you check to see what you do," said another volunteer leader."

There are infinite examples of the ramifications of the government's inaction, especially during the first two weeks of the war. The first week, there was no plan for supplying food, and only the social organization "Israel-B'Yahad" set up food distribution stations, according to Zilbershlag.

"And even later when food reached the north, there was no one to distribute it," he added. "Where was the Homefront Command?"

Although a month has passed since the beginning of the war, even now most of the food distributed up north is donated by the business sector, rather than the government. "If it wasn't for the Supersol, the food problem wouldn't be solved to this day," he said.

He noted that the Homefront Command offered aid in trucks, "but until it started to move, it took too long."

Zilbershlag asked for nine trucks to distribute food. A full 24 hours later and after many complications, the Command came up with two trucks only. "In the end we paid for trucks," he said. "I couldn't wait for them."

What annoys Zilbershlag the most is "their obnoxiousness, when they tell us, the welfare organizations, that our work is causing unemployment and more damage to the country. So I said, if I was to wait for the state instead of sending 'Meir Panim,' in the end I would have to send the medics and coroners."

According to welfare activists, the only one who understood that the government was responsible for shouldering some of the responsibility towards northern citizens was Dir. Gen. of the Prime Minister's Bureau, Raanan Dinor. Zilbershlag said that since the first week Dinor was interested in the matter. The most important thing he accomplished, according to Zilbershlag, was establishing a coordination office to deal with the supplies in the north.

A team of coordinators from the Movement for Progressive Judaism was in the north this week and witnessed the difficult scenes. The team coordinator, Sharona Yekutiel, explained that the demographic suffering the most were the disadvantaged and poorer sectors. "The elderly, infirm, handicapped, disabled – they are the ones suffering from the war. They can't survive on the most basic level." Her movement has already spent NIS 600,000 towards the effort, focusing mainly on the elderly and handicapped. Dozens were provided with apartments in Jerusalem.

After visiting dozens such homes, Yekutiel turned to the Welfare Ministry offices, to refer the cases for further treatment. There, however, she was met with the answers: "The caretakers aren't willing to go north because they are afraid," and, "We have no manpower."

'Welfare services have operated sufficiently'

Among the weaker sectors are thousands of immigrants from Ethiopia. Ido Cohen, who before the war initiated an aid program aimed at Ethiopian students through the Weiner Fund. The war interrupted the effort though, and Cohen understood that now there were more important objectives. He began recruiting funds for supplies to send the absorption centers up north. Cohen and a team of volunteers worked in eight centers in the past month, aiding thousands of Ethiopian immigrants.

Welfare Ministry responds

The Welfare Ministry responded: "Whoever claims that funds took our job, doesn't understand what the role of the Welfare Ministry is. The organizations entered every area they wanted to without asking anyone and without checking first what the needs were. We praise their activity, but they do no replace the government's responsibility towards the population aided by the welfare system. We are working in cooperation with the organizations because they can provide immediate donations and bypass bureaucracy, and together with them we double the powers of the government.

"Welfare services have operated sufficiently since the first day of the war. One must remember that welfare services deal with special demographics – it is not our role to provide food for residents, to evacuate residents, or deal with the state of bomb shelters. Hundreds of social workers from the local councils are working in the field 24 hours a day, and aiding the needy sectors. Workers are contacting all their patients and checking the state of the handicapped, elderly and weak, and providing solutions for them.

"In the matter of food, the funds organized coordinated and orderly provisions. The government budgeted NIS 8 million for food throught the Welfare Ministry. (According to a Ynet investigation, the government allotted only NIS 4 million.) Currently we are transferring NIS 12 million to local authorities in the north for special needs."