I find Batsheva lying in her bed in an underground shelter in Kiryat Shmona, the television on beside her, a talk show murmuring in the background. There are no windows, no natural light, only the steady hum of fluorescent bulbs casting a pale glow across the room. The shelter is clean and tidy, and a row of neatly made beds stretches along the wall. Batsheva, her gray hair visible above a pink blanket pulled up to her chest, is alone with the TV. It strikes me that she hasn’t seen the sun for over a month.

The elderly woman has remained inside a public shelter since the fighting began in early March. She leaves only briefly to shower at a neighbor’s home above the shelter and says fear keeps her from returning to her house up the street. “I have a bad feeling when I go out, that if I go out, something will happen to me,” she explains.

I visited Kiryat Shmona, the northern Israeli city that has returned to a rhythm of relentless sirens and shelter life after fighting with Hezbollah resumed in early March. Streets are quiet, businesses shuttered, and most encounters happen in protected spaces rather than homes or cafés.