Dovi Sonny’s apartment is repeatedly filled with the smell of gasoline, which has always been annoying, but it is now a big concern after revelations by Hezbollah that the place in northern Israeli was its target.
There’s no telling what would be the outcome if one of these round-shaped gigantic tanks were to be hit by a missile while they are about 100 meters away from his house currently located in Haifa.
Like all other people living in the port city some 30 kilometers from Lebanon, he knows nothing about specific dangers arising out of such an industrial district so he is scared on that score.
Both tanks and his residential block were featured in drone footage released by Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia movement which has been trading rocket fire with Israel since this summer’s Gaza war began.
“It frightens me whenever I hear this,” said this silver-skull-bracelet wearing guitar repairman who beat his chest as though trying to simulate beating hearts and tapping there because of pounding excitement due to listening to rockets sirens.”
“That during the gulf war, one missile fell not far from here. And all these houses… it really scares you,” continued Sonny, who also plays bass guitar for a rock band.
His neighborhood comprises Kiryat Haim located within Haifa municipality but separated from it by a vast industrial zone hosting an oil refinery, commercial port and fuel storage farm.
Some huge tanks are seen across behind a wire fence and one of them comes very close to his housing block where we live inside a chain-link barrier.
‘Residents don’t know’ –
Nevertheless Hila Lauffer – who served as Haifa City Council member for Green Party – does not buy assurances that emptying some containers made the area safe when approached by AFP correspondents.”
“Now how many of these really have fuel in them and how many are empty residents still do not know,” she tells AFP pointing at row of tanks nearest to high-rise buildings.
“And these people don’t even have motivation to investigate because they do not believe that we will ever be able to pull out the oil from here,” she argued.
She also remembers the city’s previous grassroots actions aimed at moving such facilities away from residential zones, mostly ends up in vain.
“We were shouting all those years about exactly what we are experiencing today. What will happen when this day comes and we are attacked by Iran, especially from the north?”
When asked about the industrial area of Haifa, it added: “as a precautionary measure, it was decided to control, survey, and restrict movement of materials in several plants in the North.” “The instruction doesn’t refer to closing down completely.” For instance, Northern Israel has been directed by IDF’s home front command to alter every industrial zone without giving further information regarding this.
A ‘Huge blast’.
Before the war, there seemed to be lack of information on the nature and quantities of substances handled at Haifa’s industrial zone.
In a way, independent media Mekomit suggests that this culture of “repression” and “concealment” may cause an incident like Beirut port explosion which occurred in 2020.
Indeed, it was a gigantic blast caused by ammonium nitrate fertiliser explosion stored for years inappropriately in Lebanese capital’s port that left over 220 people dead and a large part of the city destroyed.
Raja Zaatry is a (city councilor) council member who recalls the struggle with private and governmental corporations to have ammonia stock moved into Negev.
“They asked factories to reduce amounts even particularly near residential areas,” says Raja.
Nevertheless, Zaatry, like Sonny or Laufer said he does not know what exactly happened there.
“I don’t really know what are those materials but we know they are dangerous materials and also causing pollution. And if something happens like war, it can become big bomb”, he commented about it.
According to Laufer, Haifa’s industrial area being situated next to one of the biggest ports in eastern Mediterranean also means potential environmental catastrophe.
Sonny will not leave despite the stench or fears of an explosion because: “it is our home”.
Sonny laments cancellations of music concerts due to the war more than anything else.
“Music’s gone. It is pure rock ’n’ roll”, as his words say.
