In dozens of northern Israeli towns and villages, evacuated under fire from Lebanon's Hezbollah group in parallel with the Gaza war, officials hope daily rocket warning sirens will give way to school bells when the academic year starts on Sept 1.
That ticking clock has become a subject of open disagreement within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet, testing its cohesion and credibility.
Of 60,000 civilians relocated from northern Israel at the outset of the war, 14,600 are children, scattered in temporary kindergartens and schools, or premises repurposed as makeshift day-care or classes, throughout the country's interior.