Ahead of talks between Israeli and Lebanese representatives in the United States, Kiryat Shmona Mayor Avichai Stern called for decisive action against the threat posed by the Hezbollah terror organization to residents of his city.
"People have been underground for more than 40 days," Stern stressed in an interview with 103FM Radio. "We see that in the rest of the country they are starting to return to school, easing restrictions, while here we don’t know when that will happen for us."
He added, "Despite everything, we have one expectation: to finish the story with Hezbollah. We need to eliminate this organization once and for all. If we know how to eliminate organizations in Yemen and Iran, there is no reason we cannot deal with the biggest threat that has existed since 1982."
"The one who needs to provide us with security is the government in Jerusalem - not the government in Beirut and not the government in Washington. In this case, we were left without protection. We expect that at least now they won’t abandon us, and that once and for all this will be brought to an end. How did they call it in the '90s? ‘Victims of peace’? We do not want to be victims of peace. We expect them to eliminate this enemy once and for all."
Stern recounted: "We grew up like this - I was one of those children interviewed in shelters, and we were promised that our children would not be in shelters."
"Today’s generation is not like our parents’ generation that held on at any cost. Today you see young couples who see their children like this and say, ‘They don’t deserve this,’ and they take them and leave."