MIDDLE EAST: Despite the losses they are suffering, most northern Israelis support their state's bombing campaign in Lebanon, writes Peter Hirschberg
Three teenage boys hack away with a pick-axe as they try to extract the remains of a Katyusha rocket that slammed into the yard behind their working-class tenement building just hours earlier. All along the apartment block in this northern Israeli border town of Kiryat Shmona, the windows and shutters have been blown out. The top half of a tree lies on the grass, its trunk snapped by the force of the blast. Grey pockmarks dot the yellow walls of the apartment building where shrapnel has gouged out pieces of concrete.
Suddenly, a thudding boom. "Get in here, get in!" screams a woman, desperately gesturing to her young son to take cover.
"Don't worry, it's outgoing," says Yossi Biton, another resident, explaining that the loud explosion is from an Israeli artillery gun firing into Lebanon, not an incoming rocket.
"When you've lived here for 39 years like me, you learn to tell the difference," he says, referring to the fact that over the years Kiryat Shmona has often been a target of Katyusha rockets.
While residents have had to spend much of the last two weeks either in the bomb shelter or in close proximity to one, as dozens of rockets have rained down on Kiryat Shmona, Biton has only praise for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
He applauds Olmert's decision to launch a fierce military offensive against Hizbullah after the Shia organisation attacked an Israeli border patrol on July 12th, killed eight soldiers and captured two.
"I'm very proud of him for sticking it to Hizbullah," he says. "We have to put an end to this."
Since the fighting erupted 16 days ago, more than 1,500 rockets have fallen on towns across northern Israel, killing 19 civilians and injuring hundreds. Up to half of the residents in northern Israel have travelled south, out of range of the rockets, while those who have remained have spent their time in bomb shelters and reinforced concrete rooms in their homes, or close to them, listening for the sirens that warn - not always on time - of incoming rockets.
Businesses are shut, hotels are empty and farmers are unable to harvest their fields. The economic damage in the first two weeks of the fighting has been estimated at $450 million (€355 million).
Yet despite the price they are paying, it is difficult to find residents in northern Israel who disagree with Yossi Biton - even on a day when eight Israeli soldiers have been killed in fighting with Hizbullah in south Lebanon.
At a cafe on the almost deserted commercial strip along the main road leading through Kiryat Shmona, a group of men sit outside drinking Turkish coffee, cracking open sunflower seeds and talking about the fighting.
About 200m away, two cars hit in an earlier rocket attack, windows blown out, stand by the side of the road. The main street is almost deserted and the traffic lights are flashing orange so that drivers don't need to stop - another safety measure against the rockets.
"This will protect us from the Katyushas," the men laugh, pulling a black tarpaulin over their heads. "I've been in the shelter for 14 days," says Yoel Shpingin (56), his words punctuated by regular booms from nearby Israeli artillery guns firing into southern Lebanon. "I had to get some air."
The only thing that Shpingin and his friends - they are all truck drivers - disagree on is whether the Israeli army's tactics in Lebanon are effective. "Despite all the hardships, I hope Olmert doesn't halt the operation now - it will all have been for nothing," says Shpingin.
"We should have stuck to an aerial offensive and not sent in ground troops," says Yisrael Cohen (40). "No country has ever succeeded in winning a guerilla war on the ground."
He blames Hizbullah for the hundreds of civilian casualties in Lebanon. "Israel has given the civilians [ in south Lebanon] time to leave their homes so they won't be harmed, but Hizbullah uses them as human shields," he says.
While many Israelis are sceptical about the idea of an international peacekeeping force being deployed in south Lebanon, Shpingin thinks it can work. "It worked in Serbia.
"And if it doesn't work, then we'll go in and sit there again," he says, referring to Israel's 18-year occupation of a buffer zone in south Lebanon, from where it withdrew in mid-2000 after incessant attacks by Hizbullah on its troops.
At least half of the residents have left town to escape the rockets.
"I fled to Tiberias, but then rockets landed next to the hotel where I was staying," says cafe owner, Udi Mor-Yosef. "So I went to Eilat," he adds, referring to the Red Sea resort at Israel's southernmost tip. "But I can't stay away forever," he says, explaining why he has returned and reopened his cafe. "I need to earn a living."
The village of Maghar, about 30km south of Kiryat Shmona, is one of the few places in northern Israel where you are likely to hear criticism of the Israeli offensive - and only on the Muslim side of this mixed Druze-Arab village.
Abbas Mansour was at a rally outside Israel's parliament in Jerusalem against the war in Lebanon when the rocket landed on Monday in Maghar, smashing through the roof of a home and killing his cousin, a teenage girl.
Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah issued an apology, as he had done a few days earlier, when a missile killed two young brothers in the Arab village of Nazareth.
But for the 32-year-old Mansour, it is Olmert, and not Nasrallah, who is to blame for his cousin's death. "The responsibility for what has happened rests on the shoulders of the government of Israel because it started this war," he says, sitting outside the mosque where the male members of the grieving family are receiving condolence calls.
"In the six years since Israel left south Lebanon," he says, "we have enjoyed quiet here in northern Israel and there has been quiet there.
"Israel says it is reacting to the kidnapping of two soldiers, but what it has done is a complete overreaction.
"Israel believes it can bring about peace through a military operation, but it is wrong."
On the other side of Maghar, where the Druze residents live, the atmosphere is strikingly different.
Many of the residents are attending a wedding. Music blares and a group of men, arms linked, dance the debka. A man pulls out his pistol and fires several rounds into the air - a common part of the festivities. Unlike Arab citizens of Israel, Druze serve in the army and identify more closely with the state.
"Olmert is completely justified in what he's done," says Bhagat Hamed, the manager of a local supermarket.
"It is Hizbullah that came into Israel, across the border, and kidnapped two soldiers. And what about the rocket threat?" he adds, referring to the deployment of some 12,000 rockets by Hizbullah in south Lebanon facing Israel.
"People are saying Israel overreacted. This is war and in war people get hurt. On our side as well."
The city of Tiberias, located on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, and some 10 minutes drive from Maghar, is usually bustling with visitors at this time of year. But the rockets that have landed here have sent the tourists scurrying. It is evening and the hotels are shrouded in darkness. Restaurants and cafes are shut. The streets are deserted.
Gavriel Gabai, a taxi driver, cuts a lone figure as he cruises the empty streets, searching in vain for customers.
He says he spent time in Lebanon during his military service and based on his experience the deployment of an international peacekeeping force in south Lebanon - as being discussed by US and European leaders - is not the answer. "It won't happen," he concludes. "And if it does, Hizbullah won't give a damn about such a force." Gabai says he doesn't blame the thousands of people who have left Tiberias to escape the rockets. "They have children," he explains.
But so does he - three. Isn't he afraid?
"Everything is written in heaven," he replies, pointing to the skies. "When you will be born and when you will die."