Life on Israel’s northern frontline: Border towns live in fear’s shadow
The truce between Israel and Hezbollah should have seen a return of lifelong residents to their beloved communities. But the revival of towns across the northern border with Lebanon has stalled.
Seven months after Israel signed a truce to halt its war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the revival of Israeli border towns appears to have stalled as questions linger over the safety of residents returning to their homes. The answers are mixed.
Decimated by targeted assassinations and a ground incursion, Hezbollah agreed in November to withdraw its militia to the north of Lebanon’s Litani River, bringing relative peace to a region weathered by conflict. For its part, the Israeli military pulled back its soldiers too, but left a small contingent to keep watch from strategic positions in the Lebanese highlands.
Such a figurative downing of arms on both sides should have seen a return of lifelong residents to their beloved communities situated along the contours of the border with Lebanon. Many on the Israeli side who evacuated, however, won’t be coming back.
“We were innocent … with our minds, and now we can’t come back to raise children,” said Hodaya Duldner, a resident of Metula, a tiny town where 70 per cent of homes were said to have been damaged during the conflict.
Clutching a baby to her chest, Ms Duldner stepped through the bombed-out wreckage of her house on a hill with two more children in tow. From an upper-floor window she could see the battered remains of Kfarkela, a Shia-Muslim village a few hundred metres away on the other side of the border, where Hezbollah used to fly its flag.
Just over a week before the ceasefire took effect on November 27, Israeli commanders stood in what was left of Kfarkela and declared Hezbollah substantially weakened, its leadership crushed but the entity itself not entirely destroyed, a pronouncement that signalled to residents that life here would always carry an element of risk.
“I love Metula,” Ms Duldner said. “It’s the only place right now that I feel connection, like deep connection. But, still, I decided not to come back.”
Metula mayor David Azoulay said approximately 25 per cent of the town’s residents had returned since the ceasefire took effect, explaining this while showcasing the remains of Hezbollah weaponry on display in his office: drones capable of carrying grenades, the mangled engine of a Kornet missile, a large fragment from a Katyusha rocket.
A further 30 per cent of residents won’t ever come back, he said, citing security concerns or the fact they’ve already assimilated within communities elsewhere. “But it’s mostly security. They are afraid after what happened on October 7 in the south and it sits in the mind,” he said, referring to the cross-border invasion by Hamas on similar villages in 2023, resulting in the murder of more than 1200 people.
Enforcing the ceasefire on the northern side of the border is the Lebanese army. Under the terms, people are free to move south of the Litani River but only if they are not carrying a weapon, and there’s scepticism as to how strictly that protocol is policed given a significant percentage of Lebanese army soldiers are Shia Muslim. If they don’t already live in villages controlled by Hezbollah, then they’re often sympathetic to the cause, said Zoe Levornik, a northern border specialist from the Alma Research and Education Centre.
“In time, the hope is the Lebanese army will become stronger and act against Hezbollah,” Dr Levornik said. “(Hezbollah) are a big part of Lebanon society and politics, so it will be a process. A lot of the time (the Lebanese army) are co-operating, protecting and supporters of Hezbollah.”
The Israeli army maintains lookouts from five locations over southern Lebanon, mounting operations every few days that target Hezbollah militiamen allegedly operating in the region. Since November, it has carried out 400 airstrikes and more than 100 targeted killings of Hezbollah operatives, Dr Levornik said. “And that’s just what was made public.”
The militia group has certainly been weakened, she added, its Iranian weapon-smuggling capabilities worn down by Israeli bombings of the supply lines connecting both countries, alongside the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.
But people would be mistaken for thinking Hezbollah cannot find a pathway to rebuild.
“They (Hezbollah) no longer have the corridor through Syria where they were able to get money and weapons from Iran. But they’re finding new ways – it’s not the only corridor that’s available,” Dr Levornik said.
In the city of Kiryat Shmona, once home to 24,000 people, about 60 per cent of residents have returned to the community and a further trickle is expected once the school year finishes in July, with families preferring not to move sooner and disrupt their children’s education.
Much like Metula, the community’s leadership expects that up to 20 per cent of former residents won’t come back, mainly because no one can truly say it’s safe.
“The short answer is, I’m not sure,” said Yotam Degani, Kiryat Shmona’s chief development officer. “I want to believe so. Living in Kiryat Shmona, in the Upper Galilee, prior to the war was the dream. I want to live that dream again. But we saw what happened, and we know what can happen.”
Roughly 300 houses were hit by rocket fire here during the war with Hezbollah; another 3000 were indirectly damaged, along with schools, kindergartens and public infrastructure.
Many businesses remain closed, but Mr Degani is counting the small victories. A restaurant that suffered a direct hit reopened its doors a month ago, he said. And in a town that’s taken its fair share of hits, that counts as a win. “When you see that, it really warms your heart,” he said.
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