NAZARETH, Israel — In the Peace Restaurant outside the Basilica of the Annunciation, the waiters were transfixed yesterday by scenes that were anything but peaceful.

Yards from the site in Nazareth where Christians believe the Virgin Mary was told she would give birth to mankind’s savior, television screens were tuned to graphic footage of human destruction from the conflict with Lebanon.

This is the heart of Israel’s largest Arab-populated town, and the popular news channels were not Israeli but Arab cable networks such as Al-Jazeera.

Gasps filled the air as the images of flames and casualties from Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon were shown, drawing mixed emotions from viewers who are as Israeli as the bombers but as Arab as the bombed.

“I am against the war,” Aziz Hamed, 30, said. “So many people in Lebanon are getting killed and there is so much damage. Israel is overreacting.”

Another viewer said: “Nasrallah [the Hezbollah leader] is a maniac. Israel should bring him down.”

Half of the 60,000 Arab residents of Nazareth are Christian, and half are Muslim, but all are part of Israel’s 1.4 million strong Arab population — descendants of 150,000 Arabs who remained within Israel’s boundaries during the war over the country’s creation in 1948.

With Israel seemingly forever engaged in conflicts with its Arab neighbors, most notably the Palestinian Arabs, Israel’s Arab population is sometimes accused of having dual loyalties.

The population of Nazareth is used to such doubts, but in the struggle with Hezbollah it has been dragged into the conflict itself. It was among northern Israeli towns struck by a barrage of Hezbollah rockets that fell 30 miles into Israel yesterday, the farthest south so far.

One rocket fell just east of the town, harming neither its people nor its skyline of minarets and church steeples. But it did help to concentrate minds.

“Who can believe that war has come so quickly?” Mr. Hamed said. “A few days ago there was nothing, and now we have bombs here. Most here are against the war, but they would change their minds if missiles hurt people.”

Above the old city of Nazareth stands the largely Jewish new town of Natsrat Illit. There were few illusions there that the rockets would finally come.

“I expected the missiles to get here,” Boaz Bengal said. “And I think they will keep going until they get to Tel Aviv. The only answer is for the army to go in on the ground in Lebanon.”

The rocket that struck near Nazareth was part of a barrage scattered over an area of several miles.

At the center of the cluster are the runways of an Israeli air force base.

“They are not targeting us but the air force base near here,”said Gilat Cohen, from the town of Afula, south of Nazareth. “It is supposed to be a secret.”

But the air force base is marked on Israel’s road map and, judging by the missile strikes in the area, Hezbollah has learned how to read it.