The Israeli village of Shtula sits just south of the Lebanon border, so close that the outgoing thud of artillery permeating the town’s emptiness comes from the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah, not the Israeli Defense Forces. I.D.F. tanks and armored vehicles can be seen moving into place on the Israeli side of the border as the military expands its ground operations in Lebanon.
Increasing militarization across the northern border, along with ongoing rocket and missile attacks by Hezbollah, have continued to keep the towns and villages across the northern border nearly vacant, patrolled only by I.D.F. troops and regional civilian security in what the I.D.F. has declared “military zones.”
For the few residents who have decided to stay or return to nearby villages, daily life is now punctuated by the wailing alarm of incoming rockets, the blasts of Iron Dome interceptions, or the deep explosions of a rocket or missile slamming into the ground.
Idan Isach-Erez, 42, who evacuated her home in nearby Moshav Betzet in northern Israel after Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel on Oct. 8 of last year, a day after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, has now come back after nine months.
“Although it’s not a good environment for my children, although we’re still afraid, you need to decide what is more important,” said Isach-Erez, about returning to her husband in order to keep her family and their business together. Her 8-year-old daughter now spends the evenings scavenging the yard for shards of shrapnel, always staying within running distance of their aboveground bomb shelter next to their home.
Ishai Efroni, a member of kibbutz Matzuva, and director of Security and Emergency Services for the Mateh Asher Regional Council, is in charge of securing 32 communities across northern Israel. He spends his days responding to rocket strikes and potential security threats across his communities. The kibbutz where he lives and works with his family originally had 1,300 members — now there’s roughly 50, with everyone working either as security or as reservists with the I.D.F., or as essential workers keeping tabs on Matzuva’s now scattered families.
“To bring my people back home, I need to make sure that they are going to feel safe,” Mr. Efroni said, “and to feel safe it means that Hezbollah is not here, not on the border, with it’s trenches. It’s not able to shoot anti-tank missiles, not able to penetrate [the border] and come and murder civilians.”
Since last year, the Israeli government has said Hezbollah has fired nearly 12,000 rockets, missiles and explosive-carrying drones into northern Israel, where 30 civilians have been killed, and over 64,000 people have been displaced.
Israel’s subsequent aerial bombardment and invasion of southern Lebanon has killed more than 2,400 people, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, which does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. The United Nations has said that some 1.2 million Lebanese people have been displaced by Israeli airstrikes, and satellite images verified by The New York Times have shown that some Lebanese border villages have been flattened, with scores of homes leveled and damaged.
“While Hezbollah has fired more missiles indiscriminately, forcing thousands of Israelis to leave their homes, Israel has escalated its indiscriminate and large-scale airstrikes across Lebanon,” the United Nations said in a statement on Sept. 30, adding that the “ballooning violence adds immensely to the instability and the ongoing suffering of civilians in the wide region.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli government has said it is conducting “limited” and “localized” raids against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is opposed to any unilateral cease-fire that fails to stop Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping.
Moshe Davidovich, Head of the Mateh Asher Regional Council, has said he is in support of the I.D.F. continuing a ground operation in southern Lebanon, and that he is pressuring the I.D.F. to create a buffer zone inside the border of Lebanon, parts of which are residential, but are under the de facto control of Hezbollah.
“We are refugees in our own country,” Mr. Davidovich said. “Until we know that this zone is safe, that no one can throw direct missiles toward our school buses, I will not let my residents come back to their homes.”
The post What Life Looks Like for Israelis Living Near Lebanon’s Border appeared first on New York Times.
