War-wrecked Galilee center for kids with disabilities plans to be ‘larger and stronger’
Mevo’ot HaHermon Treatment and Rehabilitation Campus, closed since Oct. 8 and damaged by an errant missile, includes one of the largest hydrotherapy pools of its kind in Israel
Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel
MERKAZ KACH – Last Saturday, Beni Ben Muvhar, head of the Mevo’ot HaHermon Regional Council, was in the parking lot of the council offices with his son when they heard a huge explosion: A rocket had impacted on the roof of the nearby hydrotherapy rehabilitation building, which was unoccupied at the time.
“It was a miracle we survived,” Ben Muvhar said to The Times of Israel during a tour of the site several days later. He and his son had been in the building — part of a complex that also houses a kindergarten and elementary school for children with special needs — just moments before the incident, he said.
The hydrotherapy center is part of a multi-building complex dedicated to rehabilitation and therapy for children and adults located at Merkaz Kach, an industrial area that lies on Route 90 several kilometers south of Kiryat Shmona, and only four kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Lebanese border.
The rocket tore a hole in the roof, opening a small gap to the sky, and caused ceiling panels, light fixtures and other materials to rain into the two specially designed pools inside the building. Other sections, including a physiotherapy room with specialized equipment, were similarly damaged, rendering nearly the entire building unusable.
There was no explosion — the damage was caused by the impact alone. The only area not affected was a small fortified room, nominally the building’s bomb shelter but usually used for therapy sessions or bodywork.
“This place is my life’s work,” Ben Muvhar said as he led this reporter through the damaged building. “Everything you see here, there once was nothing.”
Entering the large central room, the main pool was quiet and still. Ceiling panels, broken glass, shattered light fixtures and other debris were scattered everywhere, including inside the pool. There was no electricity or air conditioning, and the air smelled of chlorine and dust.
Making his way alongside the water, while fielding a constant stream of telephone calls and in-person staff consultations about the situation, Ben Muvhar pointed out the rocket, thought to be a stray Iron Dome projectile launched in defense against a Saturday drone barrage from Lebanon, that was still lodged in the ceiling. One of the heavy steel girders supporting the roof was bent from the impact.
Closed due to the undeclared war in the north
Called the “Mevo’ot HaHermon Treatment and Rehabilitation Campus,” the complex is one of the largest centers of its kind in Israel.
In non-war periods, the center provides more than 20,000 individual treatment sessions a year and also offers services to the general public, including IDF veterans with PTSD or other conditions. A small branch of the health service provider Clalit is also housed on the campus, along with the local council offices.
However, due to its location, the entire facility has been off-limits to patients since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the Lebanon border on a near-daily basis. The Iran-backed group says it is doing so to support Gaza, following Hamas’s brutal terror onslaught against southern Israel the day before.
The Saturday attack consisted of several explosive-laden drones, which Hezbollah said was in response to an Israeli strike that killed a Hamas commander in Lebanon.
The target was the Michve Alon military base near Maghar, which the Lebanese terror group claimed was used by the Israel Defense Forces as a staging ground and as a munitions depot. Michve Alon, located some 18 kilometers (11 miles) from the Lebanon border, is a training base of the IDF’s Education and Youth Corps.
In his office, which held a great deal of memorabilia including a collection of antique cameras, Ben Muvhar, a friendly but serious man in his late 60s, explained that the campus has been in development since 1998, only a year after he was first elected as the head of the Mevo’ot HaHermon Regional Council.
“When I arrived here, there was a school with 12 students with special needs, very hard cases. All they did was, they arrived by shuttle and then they left. Some days it worked, some days it didn’t so much,” he said.
The school was deep in debt and failing financially, and so “the correct thing to do was to close it,” Ben Muvhar recalled.
Instead, he doubled down on the idea, and slowly developed the complex into a multifaceted treatment and education center. The Education Ministry supports the schools, and the local council and various donations provide for the rest of the funding.
Now, “the whole north comes here, it’s a lot of people. They come from Tiberias, Afula, Safed, Kiryat Shmona, all around,” he said proudly.
Where children with disabilities can experience water
The kindergarten and elementary school both specialize in “students with special needs, from ‘medium’ cases up to more serious conditions who have to be fed with a tube,” he said.
Some students are severely disabled and have conditions that render them unable to move, and some are in wheelchairs. Others are “unable to really learn, or can’t hear,” Ben Muvhar said.
The damaged hydrotherapy center, which was inaugurated in 2010, has two separate indoor pools of different temperatures, along with a host of specialized equipment, including body slings that allow the more physically challenged patients to “experience the water,” he explained.
In the aftermath of the strike, Ben Muvhar and his staff are “preparing everything we need to start the process of refurbishing and get approvals,” but the timetable is uncertain.
“The whole area is a closed military zone, we can’t get permission to bring contractors here,” he said.
The repairs are to be paid for by the government, but the local council staff are preparing to launch a new fundraising drive to create “a larger, better and stronger rehabilitation center,” which is to include a new building and additional facilities, he said.
This drive is in anticipation of a surge of new patients, both civilians and soldiers, resulting from the conflict, he stressed.
It’s important that “good, smart people in the government” will help in this effort without throwing up too many “bureaucratic obstacles,” Ben Muvhar said.
“I know that we will build this place better than it was,” he added.
Emmanuel Fabian and TOI Staff contributed to this report.
