A Time to Heal?

With a cease-fire in place, soldiers and civilians in Haifa consider how the war between Israel and Hezbollah has affected them, and what comes next.

HAIFA,

Seidner, whose family moved from Nashville, Tenn., to Tekoa, Israel, when he was 10, was a radio operator for a special reconnaissance squad with the Golani Brigade of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

He says his unit was operating out of a large house in south Lebanon when they saw three armed men sneaking around the building. He went up to the second floor to get a better look when he saw the first flash.

"They fired an anti-tank missile at the house," he says. "I couldn't see where it came from but called it in on the radio. Then the second missile hit."

Kevin Sites interviews an Israeli soldier who survived an anti-tank missile attack.» View

It exploded inside the room where Seidner was.

"The blast knocked me against he wall," he says. "It was just this red flash then the room just went black and filled with smoke. I took a step but fell over. And my legs felt weird."

Seidner says someone helped him downstairs, where the unit doctor was treating other casualties. Both of his legs had been penetrated by shrapnel and he would learn later, after he was evacuated back to Israel, that one of the pieces had broken his lower left leg.

"I'm lucky," he says. "A lot of the guys were hurt a lot worse."

In another room on another floor is Harel Siani, 21, also a victim of a Hezbollah anti-tank missile. But he took his shrapnel in his arms. They are bound with so many bandages, tapering thick to thin, they resemble chicken drumsticks. His sister, Deganit, tilts a plastic cup to his lips to give him a drink of water.

"When I got hit, I couldn't feel my arms," says Siani. He says the metal tore gaping holes in his flesh and also broke bones in his right arm. "I don't remember this, but my friends told me that when they were evacuating me out on a chopper I kept telling them I wouldn't get onboard without my mother," he laughs.

His mother, Nira, is now at his bedside. She says she's just relieved he's alive, but wishes he hadn't volunteered to go into Lebanon.

"This is his choice. He loves Israel. He loves what he does. I respect his choice. We live in Israel," she says. "Who's going to guard us but our kids?"

Combat Engineer Nir Yosef didn't have to go to Lebanon either. He was a week away from completing his required three years service and was due to be released from the IDF shortly after the start of the Israeli offensive in Lebanon. But instead of getting out, he went into Lebanon with his unit and took shrapnel in the abdomen while trying to enter a booby-trapped house.

He was injured the very day he was supposed to be discharged.

Yosef had to have a portion of his small intestines removed and has not been able to eat or drink anything for almost a week, instead taking nutrients from an intravenous drip. He says he has no regrets.

"It was worth it," he says, "to be with the people I trained with and to help my country."

I ask Yosef if he thinks Israel is in a better position after the cease-fire. "I can't be sure where we are at the end of the war," he replies.

In the war, sparked July 12 when Hezbollah guerillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, Israeli air strikes battered southern Lebanon and Beirut, while as many as 4,000 Hezbollah rockets rained down on northern Israel.

In Haifa, getting back to life after the fight» View

Outside the hospital in Haifa, things are coming back to life. Shwarma restaurants are again open for business and people are eager to enjoy the outdoors. Just south of the city, the beaches are once again crowded.

But while beachgoers enjoy the sun, surf and sand, some express dissatisfaction in how the war ended.

Shikma Revivo says she is against the cease-fire because she thinks Israel didn't hit Hezbollah hard enough.

"Within two years it could be World War III," she says.

"Do you feel Israel won the war?" I ask her.

"No," she replies, "but we did need to fight it."

Itmar Reznikovich and Asaf Greenwald are both Israeli army reservists whose units did not get called up to fight in Lebanon. For the moment, they relax in the sand, but they say Israel isn't more secure now than it was before the war.

"I felt it was a just war," says Reznikovich, "but I'm not happy the way it ended up. We didn't achieve any of our goals in the beginning of the crisis. The (kidnapped) soldiers are not home. Hezbollah is on the border, 20 meters from the fence, with guns. We have about 140 soldiers that are dead. We didn't achieve anything."

Greenwald agrees. "It's not just the problem of Israel anymore," he says. "Hezbollah is a problem of the whole world."

On Haifa's highest hilltop overlooking the ocean, Haj Asad, an Israeli Arab, takes a break from his job as a plumber to watch his two daughters play in the park.

"They've been inside so long they don't want to lose a single minute outside," he laughs, drinking some strong black coffee and smoking a cigarette at one of the picnic tables.

Israeli beach goers consider life after the war. » View

He says he sent his daughters to stay with their grandparents in a safer area after two Hezbollah missiles struck his neighborhood.

"When we heard the air raid sirens we tried to take shelter under the stairs," he says. "But we never even made it. We didn't have any damage, but the whole house trembled."

He says Israel has a right to defend itself, but shouldn't have started a war over two captured soldiers.

I ask him how his neighbors reacted to the images of the destruction in Lebanon and of civilian casualties, specifically the pictures of the children killed at Qana from an Israeli air strike. Twenty eight people died in that strike, the majority of them women and children. It was one of the worst incidents of civilian casualties in Lebanon during the latest war.

"Anyone would be angry at that," he says. "Whether you're Jewish or Arab, these are horrible things. It's a tragedy no matter who you are. People can see that Arabs don't have green blood. We are the same."

While he sits at the table his 6-year-old daughter, Sally, comes to him, crying loudly and scratching her arms and legs in an allergic reaction to the grass. Asad cradles her in his arms and calms her down.

"What do the people in your neighborhood think of (Hezbollah leader) Sheik Hassan Nasrallah?" I ask him. "Is he popular for attacking Israel?"

Asad pauses for a moment before answering.

"It's not about Sheik Nasrallah," he says. "He is a leader and like other leaders, like those in the Israeli government, makes decisions away from the people, without really thinking about them. The people are only abstractions to them. But when you start a war, it's really the people that suffer."

And on both sides of the border, the toll of that suffering was indeed high. Over 800 people died in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 157 died in Israel, 39 of them civilians, with thousands wounded on both sides.

But at least if the truce holds, residents of Haifa will be able to continue taking small steps toward some measure of healing.

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