'This was a peaceful town' Living in northern Israel under Hezbollah fire

In southern Lebanon, Israel has launched an unprecedented barrage of airstrikes, killing hundreds as thousands flee.

- Lorenzo Tondo Quique Kierszenbaum

In the small town of Kiriat Bialik in northern Israel, however, an eerie silence prevails, occasionally interrupted by sirens and the thundering explosions of Hezbollah rockets and missiles being intercepted by air defences.

Some of the missiles get through.

At about 6.30am on Sunday, Ami Aziza, 40, had just enough time to usher his family into their safe room, a fortified space found in many Israeli homes. Three seconds later, an Iranian-made Fajr-3 rocket struck their small street of low-rise homes and flats, leaving a crater and setting vehicles ablaze. Three people were injured.

"If the rocket had fallen 2 metres further, it would have destroyed my house," said Aziza, as he and other residents tried to clear away the debris. "This was a peaceful town.

And we want to go back to our normal lives, to our work. We want our children to go back to school.

We want a diplomatic solution.

Since this new war with Lebanon started, everything has changed." In the aftermath of the 7 October attacks, Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas in Gaza, has traded almost daily fire with Israeli troops along the Lebanon-Israel border. But in a significant escalation of the conflict, Israeli warplanes this week carried out one of most intense bombardments since the end of the 1975-90 civil war, and Hezbollah responded with its deepest rocket attacks into Israel since the start of the Gaza war.

Since then, Kiriat Bialik, situated along the long arc of Haifa Bay and one of four towns and two neighbourhoods together known as the Krayot, has found itself under increasing threat.