Last week, dozens of parents from the northern city of Nahariya demonstrated in front of city hall to demand that the municipality provide bomb shelters within local schools. The protest took place the day after a Hezbollah drone strike on Nahariya directly hit a building, rendering two apartments unlivable.
“It will take as long as it takes, and the children will stay home during that time,” Marina, a mother of two children in second and third grade, said of her decision to protest. “I will not wait for the second Majdal Shams disaster and for my children to be part of it.”
Children were in school last week when a drone hovered over the 64,000-resident city, and many parents were upset by the time it took for them to receive word that their children were safe.
Leah Mochalov, a third-grader who attended the protest with her mother Sasha, described the “really scary” experience of lying on the classroom floor covering her hands with her head, in accordance with the government regulation for areas without an accessible shelter. “There were kids who cried, but I didn’t,” Mochalov said.
“If I could say something to the mayor or prime minister, I would ask to study in a bomb shelter,” the third-grader continued. “I don’t want to miss math class.”
Nahariya recently made the decision to install bomb shelters in preschools but has not provided a similar solution for school-aged children. Michal Roimi, the mother of a preschooler and a first-grader, is frustrated by that discrepancy. “My child loves company, loves to learn, but I won’t send him back to school like this,” she said.
Some protesters spoke with Ilan Vaknin, head of the municipality’s Education and Community Administration, while an employee of the city’s Education Department collected the parents’ complaints. Some parents suggested that school be held within the city’s community centers or within the many public bomb shelters.
“We know that Nahariya is in the crosshairs,” said Karin Elia, mother of a school-aged child. “There are bomb shelters, but there’s not enough time to go down into one. And there isn’t always one close by when there’s a siren.”
The parents made clear that their complaints were not directed at the teachers. “The teachers were really reassuring, even though they also have children and they are also worried,” one protester said. “But they work in the system, and they can’t make their voices heard.”
The Nahariya municipality released a statement after the protest noting that the city’s school system operates in accordance with instructions of the Home Front Command and makes the decision to open schools or not on a daily basis. The municipality noted that 92% of children attended school on the day of the protests, a statistic that it said “attests to the great trust of parents in the system.”
This article was translated from Hebrew and edited for context by Benji Sharp.
