With non-standard classrooms and fewer students: Kiryat Shmona and its surroundings return to school

Tomorrow morning, school doors will open across the country, but in Kiryat Shmona and the communities of the Galilee Panhandle, the new school year begins with a completely different feeling. After three years of war, long months of evacuation, closed educational institutions, and torn communities, the last summer in the north was for the first time quiet and relatively stable. Joy was felt in the city streets, festivals were held, and a genuine desire to rebuild emerged. But beneath the surface, the scars are still well felt.

The local education system is opening the year with fewer students than in October 2023, with small and non-standard classrooms that require huge budgets just to maintain teaching positions, and with a stubborn struggle to bring back the families who chose to stay in the center of the country. Kiryat Shmona was evacuated of most of its residents with the start of the Iron Swords war. Three of the city's residents were killed, dozens were wounded, and the city suffered extensive damage to homes and buildings. Since the ceasefire, only about two-thirds of the residents have returned to Kiryat Shmona — some of whom have gone out to demonstrate several times, crying out for government attention and recognition of the city as a disaster-stricken area requiring deep and targeted treatment.

During 2026, 456 million shekels were invested in the education system in the "Tnufa" region, an increase of about 70% within a year. The Tnufa for the North administration declares that education is the central engine for the goal of about 100,000 new residents in the north within a decade. But the educational challenge is one of the most complex, after decades of discrimination and underinvestment — and it is a challenge that is perhaps true for the entire Israeli education system.

Dr. Aliza Bloch, former mayor of Beit Shemesh, presented a framework aimed at dealing with the challenge of restoring motivation to the residents. The program includes strengthening the status of teachers and principals, transferring powers to the field, a civil-educational cabinet for emergencies, a national preparatory year in the 12th grade, differential budgeting, and anchoring state-religious education. According to Bloch, who recently joined Gilad Erdan's "Unity" party:

"The core begins and ends with the teachers and principals, and education is the key to strengthening resilience and reducing the rift in Israel."