Back to the classroom – or shelters? Next school year, Israel’s Lebanon strategy will be in jeopardy

In dozens of northern Israeli towns and villages evacuated under fire from the Lebanese Hezbollah group in parallel with the Gaza war, officials hope the daily rocket warning sirens will give way to school bells when the academic year begins on September 1.

That ticking clock has become a subject of open disagreement within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, testing its coherence and credibility.

Of the 60,000 civilians who moved from northern Israel at the start of the war, 14,600 are children, scattered in temporary kindergartens and schools, or buildings repurposed as makeshift childcare or classrooms, in the country’s interior.