For two and a half years, life in Israel’s North has been anything but stable. Families have been uprooted, returned, and uprooted again—forced to live without any real sense of permanence. The latest escalation involving Iran and Hezbollah has only reinforced what residents already know: This is not a crisis that has passed, but one that continues to evolve, with no clear end in sight.

Even before the October 7 attacks, the North was already at a disadvantage. Longstanding disparities in healthcare were both pronounced and well documented. According to Israel’s Health Ministry, life expectancy in the North is 81.9 years, compared to 84.2 in the country’s center—a gap that reflects deeper inequities in access and outcomes. These disparities are further compounded by uneven resource allocation. There are just 3.2 physicians per 1,000 residents in the North, compared to 5.0 in Tel Aviv and 4.2 across the Central District. Hospital bed availability tells a similar story: 1.5 per 1,000 residents in the North versus 2.3 in Tel Aviv.

The consequences are significant. Limited access to care contributes to a higher burden of chronic disease. Data from Bar-Ilan University’s Russell Berrie Galilee Diabetes SPHERE initiative shows that Type 2 diabetes........

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