Kiryat Shmona

Kiryat Shmona means “Town of Eight” in Hebrew, honoring Yosef Trumpeldor and seven others who were murdered in the nearby town of Tel Hai in 1920. Situated on the ruins of the old Arab village Al-Khalsa, the city was given its new name in 1949, By virtue of its location in the Hula plain of Upper Galilee near the Ixbanese border, Kiryat Shmona was the target of numerous PLO katyusha bombings and terrorist attacks until Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, and it has been subject to Hizballah shelling as recently as July 1993.

Given the grim nickname Kiryat Katj usha, many of its buildings bear the scars of these assaults on their damaged facades-Walking the thin line between humor and horror, three brightly painted tanks sit ifl a small park near the southern entrance to the town. Although the administrative and transportation center of the Upper Galilee, the uttle more than a pit-stop for most tourists.