Bomb shelter (illustrative)
Bomb shelter (illustrative)David Cohen/Flash90

Is the country headed for a ceasefire, or for further escalation? Preparing for the worst, several local authority heads in the north of the country have opened their bomb shelters, without waiting for an order from the Home Front Command to do so.

The decisions of councils in Haifa, the Krayot (Haifa suburbs), Akko (Acre), Tzfat, Karmiel, and several others near the border with Lebanon, were made following rocket fire from Lebanon on Wednesday afternoon. Sirens were heard in the northern cities of Shfar’am and I’billin, the Krayot, Akko, Kfar Masaryk, and Ein Hamifratz.

Four rockets were actually fired into Israeli territory, although two of them exploded in the sea. One other was intercepted by the Iron Dome missile shield, and the fourth hit an open area near the Arab-Israeli town of Shfar’am.

Later that afternoon, following the shooting, the IDF responded with the firing of 16 artillery shells at the Lebanese village of Sadikin, the apparent source of the attack on Israel.

Last week, multiple rockets were fired from southern Lebanon into northern Israel. The Lebanese army has deployed forces to the area where the rockets were launched from.