Bleeding children on the soccer pitch and the abandonment of the North - opinion

The image is unbearable and heart-wrenching.

Children, dressed in sports uniforms, who just moments ago were running on the field after the ball, shouting at each other, are now lying on the grass, injured, bleeding, dead.

This is the picture of the abandonment by the Israeli government and its leader of the North.

A picture that will forever be etched in the bloody history of this beautiful region, which has been pleading for its life for ten months, and no one in Jerusalem is listening to the cries rising from there. 

The throats of the residents, living under heavy fire, are already hoarse. The smoke from the fires burns in their throats, and their ears hurt from the noise of the shells and fighter jets. And no one listens.

This image is the picture of the conception. Not only did a conception in the South strike us on October 7, but since then, everyone has been trying to break it and change the way. 

In the North, the conception is still there, and as time goes by, it strengthens and reaches absurd dimensions. The State of Israel did not abandon the North on October 7. 

Out of sight, out of mind

It abandoned it decades earlier, pushing it to the end of the line in health services, education, welfare, infrastructure, and protection. Far from the eye, the funds, and the heart.

More than seven years ago, I warned about the enormous protection gaps, where in some communities adjacent to and near the fence, 60% of the residents do not have protected spaces. 

In 2018, a cabinet decision was made to budget the "Northern Protection" program with NIS 5 billion. But no one cared. "What, will we protect ourselves to death?" said experts from the center of the country in anger, "Missiles will also fall on Tel Aviv."

Only NIS 300 million have been transferred to the program, and only 1,000 protected spaces have been built instead of tens of thousands. A UAV fell in Tel Aviv, and the country trembled; children died in Majdal Shams, and the government remained silent.

The conception did not stop only at abandoning the communities that did not evacuate and needed a standard protected space several times a day when alarms sounded. 

It continues in air-conditioned studios, with the unbelievable claim that the North should not have been evacuated - because if Hezbollah knew there were residents there, they would have been more cautious and shot less.

How detached these statements are, how much hubris and lack of understanding of reality. 

The harsh reality in the North

Try saying that to the three orphans of the Burns family from Kibbutz Ortal, who lost their parents, Noa and Nir, from a direct hit to their car, or to the Ayalon family from Kfar Yuval, who lost the mother of the family Mira and Beni Brak from anti-tank fire.

Say that to the child from Kfar Sold, Hurfeish, Gesher Haziv, Abdon, and Majdal Shams, who hears the loud explosions and wets his pants, lying on the floor at home with his hands on his head - because there is no protected space, and he has no chance to reach the public shelter when the boom comes first and then the alarm.

The horror pictures from Majdal Shams must crack the unbearable conception of the North. Everything will be okay, and there is no need to evacuate communities more than 5 kilometers from the border, even if it is impossible to maintain anything close to everyday life there.

If the Israeli government cannot go to war in Lebanon - because of the campaign in Gaza, the hostage deal that is not happening, the arrangements for the day after, or any other excuse - it should hurry and immediately evacuate all the civilians from there.

If they cannot be evacuated, place protected spaces everywhere. 

The heads of the authorities should not have to beg to receive them in dribs and drabs. No one should have to play Russian roulette with their lives every day.

Israel's late national poet Hayim Nahman Bialik wrote about "the revenge of a small child," a revenge not created by Satan. 

What else needs to happen so that children do not end their lives while playing soccer or lying dead on the grass? To save the North? 

The time for action is now. Now. "And let the blood penetrate the abyss! Let the blood penetrate the depths of darkness, and devour in the dark and undermine there all the decaying foundations of the earth."