Kiryat Shmona

The major urban center in the Upper Hula Valley, Kiryat Shmona is known for the cable car up Manara Cliff. For years, the instability in neighboring Lebanon profoundly affected life in the town, and by 1982 the spate of terrorist attacks had reached such proportions that Israel responded by invading Lebanon, the first stage of what would become the First Lebanon War. Kiryat Shmona was again in the news in 1996 when Hezbollah terrorists launched a focused and continued attack on the town and its environs using Katyusha rockets. The Israel Defense Forces responded by targeting Hezbollah's bases in southern Lebanon in a campaign that became known as the Grapes of Wrath. In 2006, Hezbollah again lobbed rockets into northern Israel, sparking the Second Lebanon War.