
After more than 15 months of war and as a cease-fire in northern Israel seems to be holding, Israelis on the country’s northern and southern borders are ready to think about the day after the fighting. At a meeting of the Knesster’s Special Committee for Bridging Social Gaps in the Periphery earlier this month, representatives from the periphery discussed the importance and the challenges of bringing tourism back to Israel’s borders. A representative from the Ministry of Tourism committed during the discussion to invest about 175 million shekels ($47 million) into the sector.
“I warned at the beginning of last year that if the eligibility for unpaid leave wasn’t extended, we would face an employment catastrophe. When the war ends, we’ll want to restart the tourism sector, but there will be no workers,” Inbar Bezek, former Knesset member and head of the Economic Company for the Development of the Upper Galilee, said in the committee.
Although the cease-fire in northern Israel has now held for more than six weeks, tourism hasn’t been able to start up again in the north because the workers aren’t there, Bezek said. Another key challenge is getting bed-and-breakfasts operational again after a year of being out of service.
Bezek called for workers in tourism, agriculture, and factory work in Israel’s northern and southern borders to receive additional grants beyond the money transferred to all residents of those areas. “We are requesting a return-to-work grant for long-time workers to encourage them to return,” she said.
She also called on the government to support B&B owners through a decision that at least half of the staff retreats for government workers take place in the Galilee and the area around Gaza. “This will funnel money that the government ministries are already spending,” she said. “There’s no state employee who doesn’t attend an annual retreat.”
Erez Moshe, head of a hotel near northern Israel’s Hula Valley, said this since reopening, his hotel has only managed to find 60 of the 200 workers needed. “We need help to retain the employees we have recruited until demand rises, otherwise we won’t be able to recruit them back,” he said.
Moshe made clear that he wasn’t looking for anyone’s pity. “We are strong Zionists,” he said. “But we need help.”
If businesses in northern Israel don’t get support from the government to reopen, he said, “the country’s border will start at Rosh Pina”—more than 20 miles south of the current northern border.
Wael Kiuf, head of the Ministry of Tourism’s rural tourism department, said that the ministry plans to allocate 60 million shekels (about $16 million) over the next three years to refurbish B&Bs and hotels. “All facilities that were closed for a year require refreshing,” he said.
He said that the ministry intends to allocate an additional 40 million shekels (about $11 million) to encourage Israelis to vacation domestically and 75 million shekels (about $20 million) for building tourism infrastructure. He noted that the budgets still require approval from the Finance Ministry.
In the Gaza envelope, much of the tourism that has taken place since the start of the war has been tours of the destruction wreaked on October 7, 2023. Michal Peleg Uziel, head of the Eshkol Regional Council, which was devastated in the attacks, expressed a desire for the region not to be defined purely by the attacks.
“To those bringing people here on ‘Auschwitz tours,’ I say that we are a nation of light and rebirth,” she said. “Our story is not October 7, but what was before and what will be after.”
She said that resources have to be devoted to promoting life and resilience on Israel’s borders. “If the Ministry of Defense, the government, and the ministries decide on the principle of sending people to activities in the periphery, it will happen. If they decide that festivals in the periphery are important, it will happen. But it needs to be part of a policy,” she said.
Arnon Bire, head of Eshkol’s tourism department, said that promoting tourism is closely connected to promoting rural development. “The possibility of going out into open spaces is part of mental resilience,” he said. “It’s a significant connection to agriculture, the land, food security.”
He called on the state to prioritize support for tourism in rural areas.
This article was translated from Hebrew by Ronen Cohen.