The head of Asher’s Regional Council, Moshe Davidovitch, informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a letter sent Sunday that residents of the North are going to abandon the area if more is not done to improve the situation there.
The North has been under near-constant attack since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, and rocket and drone attacks have been increasing significantly in the past few days.
Davidovitch is also the head of the Conflict Line Forum, which deals with the needs of those living in the towns along Israel’s northern border.
Conflict zone
"Surface level work that is not coordinated or managed is being done, and for weeks, the Prime Minister's Office has been sending us recycled drafts [of plans] that are missing critical sections and blatantly ignoring needs on the ground," said Davidovitch in the letter entitled "the failure of the plan to strengthen and develop the conflict zone."
“Surface-level work that is not coordinated or managed is being done, and for weeks the Prime Minister’s Office has been sending us recycled drafts [of plans] that are missing critical sections and blatantly ignoring needs on the ground,” said Davidovitch in the letter titled “The failure of the plan to strengthen and develop the conflict zone.”“Given the manner in which this national issue is being handled, the northern conflict zone will be abandoned – not only the towns that have been evacuated, but the entire conflict area in which your people believe things are business as usual while unexplainably ignoring reality,” Davidovitch told Netanyahu in the letter.
In the letter, Davidovitch blamed some of the failures on “ego battles” between different government bodies and the laundering of budgets as well.
Citizens are also expressing the frustrations pointed out by Davidovitch and a number of organizations are calling for citizens to set up a protest “refugee camp” in order to send a message to the state that residents of the north will not give up on their homes.
“For seven months, we held ourselves back and waited patiently for it to be the North’s turn,” said organizers. “Now that communities are falling apart, families are crashing, and businesses are shutting down, it is time to wake up.”
"Citizens of the north who have become refugees and those who were forgotten in a warzone are setting up a camp of displaced people from the Galilee," they said.
Davidovitch and heads of other municipalities in the area met with Aliyah and Integration Minister Ofir Sofer on Sunday.
Davidovitch and heads of other municipalities in the area met with Aliyah and Integration Minister Ofir Sofer on Sunday.“Where is the government? What, are they laughing at us?” asked Davidovitch at the meeting. “Even a banana republic does not work like this,” he added. “The government is destroying the North.”Hundreds of citizens protested in Israel’s North on Independence Day against “a lack of plan, lack of security, lack of budget, and [a] collapse of business owners and farmers.”The protest occurred after the Conflict Line Forum decided to announce that it would unilaterally secede from Israel, establishing a “State of Galilee.”“The soul of the public in the North has been torn apart by the lack of action. From now on, we will stop listening to the government; we will run as an independent country and act independently without a state,” Davidovitch told Army Radio about the move.Liat Ron and Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.