'I live in a ghost town'

Sharon Healy works as an English teacher in a small town near Haifa

Sharon Healy has dual British and Israeli nationality. Ten years ago she went to Haifa to make it her home.

Despite being able to return to the UK, she has decided to stay in Israel. She describes what life has been like for the past few weeks.

I live in a town in northern Israel 10 minutes away from Haifa. Here in Nesher, we can hear very clearly all the rockets landing nearby and our town got its own Katyusha rocket a few days ago.

For the past several weeks, life has changed a lot. Financially it's crippling and psychologically it's impossible to describe.

It's almost surreal. Everything has come to a standstill. Northern Israel is closed for business.

I teach English to private students and I am now out of business. Nearly half of the town's population has left. It's like a ghost town.

Israel is full of reminders of terror. It's impossible to ignore and not be affected by them.

You need a lot of humour to survive here.

The Israeli media won't report on where the Hezbollah rockets are falling, so we've come up with a guessing game trying to figure out which area has been hit judging by the the sound.

I had a car accident a few days ago and it happened shortly after we got our first rocket.

I was so frightened, I thought a Katyusha had landed on my car. Now I can't repair it - all the garages are closed, the insurance company is closed too.

Israel is a very difficult country to live in. Especially for someone coming from England, where everything runs so smoothly and people are so polite. It's quite a different culture and you need to be very tough.

It's full of reminders of terror. They are everywhere, it's impossible to ignore and not be affected by them.

I am fraught with sadness every time I hear of innocent victims on all sides.

I remember how shocked I was when I asked my pupils to make a sentence in English with the words "fortunately" and "unfortunately".

The beginning of the sentence was: "Fortunately the bus came along quickly." They had to finish the sentence and one child continued "but unfortunately a suicide bomber got on it and blew himself up." Only a child in Israel can say that.

Haifa is a multi-racial and multi-ethnic community and I love it this way. I teach Arab kids, I have Arab friends and I love going to the Arab part of the town.

I also work as a volunteer giving talks on domestic violence and I have worked closely with Jews and Arabs alike. I am fraught with sadness every time I hear of innocent victims on all sides.

My daughter is serving in the medical corps of the IDF and I am very happy to see her wearing an Israeli army uniform.

My son didn't want to bear arms against anyone and managed to avoid the draft. I understand and respect his decision as well.