250 km from Gaza, Israel hastened to tighten its border Lebanon On Thursdayto prepare for a possible second front in their war against Islamist militants. In Shtula and other small towns in this mountainous region, fears are growing that the… Hezbollah Join the fight.
Authorities deployed forces along the border and evacuated the few remaining civilians from 28 communities within a protection zone that stretches just over a mile from the Lebanese border.
Tanks and armored personnel carriers were stationed all over the area and were moving along the almost deserted streets. Military checkpoints cordoned off the area. The units set up camps under the cover of the trees.
Israel and Lebanon have stepped up border skirmishes. Photo: Hussein Malla / AP
Forces on both sides have engaged in several firefights in the days since the terrorists’ withdrawal Hamas launched their surprise attack against Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,400 people.
Hezbollah said eight of its fighters had been killed in Israeli attacks in the border region since Tuesday. An elderly couple was killed in a rural Lebanese town. An Israeli projectile is believed to have killed a Portal cameraman covering the fighting last week. The Israel Defense Forces said it was investigating the incident, which left six other journalists injured.
The IDF claims that at least five Israelis were killed, including three soldiers, in a shootout with a Hezbollah sniper who had infiltrated the area. The only civilian killed, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was shot Sunday while working at a construction site in this mountain town, just meters from the border fence.
Israeli army inspects site in northern Israel hit by a Hezbollah rocket. Photo: Jalaa Marey/AFP
“In a single second, everything changed,” said Liav Benshushan, a reserve member of Shtula’s small security force. and one of the few civilians in the town of 300 people. A plume of smoke rose from a nearby hill, not far from where gunfire erupted in the Israeli town of Zarit on Tuesday.
Benshushan was the owner of the house the man helped build. “He was my friend.”
The international community is struggling to contain the risk of a wider fight between Israel and Hezbollah, the Shiite militia that is Lebanon’s dominant political and military force. You US Last week they sent warships to the region, hoping the show of force would deter the group and its Iranian allies from launching a largescale attack..
But a humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid Israeli airstrikes in response to terrorist bombings by Hamas has killed more than 3,000 people, fueled anger in Lebanon and across the Arab world and could lead to an escalation by Hezbollah.
That anger grew after hundreds of people died after a rocket hit a hospital in Gaza on Monday, an explosion for which the IDF and Palestinian militants blamed each other. According to American intelligence, Israel is “not responsible” for the explosion. But that wasn’t enough to quell outrage in Lebanon, where distrust of the United States runs high. Clashes between soldiers and protesters continued for a second day in Beirut on Wednesday.
Israeli soldier next to a tank on the border between Israel and Lebanon Photo: Lisi Niesner/Portal
“Everyone must stand up and say that the project to drive people out of Gaza will not be approved,” Hashem Safieddine, chairman of Hezbollah’s Executive Council, said on Wednesday.
Israel announced on Monday that it had deployed regular and reserve forces along its northern bordereven as it massed troops around Gaza for an expected ground invasion.
“The IDF is fighting the terrorist organization Hamas, which started this war, and is prepared for all scenarios, both north and south,” the Israeli army said in a statement to The Washington Post. “We advise our enemies not to test our ability to defend ourselves.”
Civilians on both sides of the border, where neighborhoods are so close that Israelis and Lebanese can see and hear each other, braced for the possibility that their homes would again become a war zone as happened within 34 days in 2006 Conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. More than 1,000 people were killed in Lebanon and more than 150 in Israel.
Ahmed Deeb, mayor of the village of Wazzani on the border with Lebanon, said Israeli projectiles had already landed on the outskirts of his town. But most of the city’s residents are poor and few think about leaving the city.
“Where should we be taken?” he asked. “No no no. God willing, we will stay.”
Border between Lebanon and Israel. Residents of border towns fear an escalation of sanctions. Photo: Wael Hamzeh / EFE
In Israel, thousands of evacuated civilians watched the events in hotels and at friends’ homes. Some left the area when rockets began falling last week. The rest moved south as the military ordered a mandatory evacuation on Monday.
Guy Becker, 52, said most people in his border kibbutz Baram had moved to a single hotel in Tiberias, 30 km south. He, his wife and two daughters tried several locations before deciding it would be more comfortable to stay with his 400 roommates, he said.
The Oct. 7 attacks sparked fear, especially in small northern towns like hers, Becker said, which in many ways resembled the communities overrun by gunmen from the terrorist group Hamas. “Hezbollah forces breaking through fences and entering settlements in the north is exactly the scenario we have been fearing and preparing for for years,” he said.
Like the kibbutzim and southern towns that have become synonymous with atrocities Reim, Beeri, Kfar Azza most northern border towns rely on a small armed security force of reservists and civilians as their first line of defense. Members of the volunteer force in Shtula remained behind in their deserted town they declined to say how many there were but had no illusions about how they would fare in a similar attack.
Eliyahu Galil, a local journalist, placed his M16 and a bulletproof vest full of ammunition on the floor of one of the city’s few inhabited houses. At the end of the street, thousands of chickens clucked in an unkempt coop. A wall nearby was damaged by a rocket on Tuesday.
Less than 600 meters from Shtula, a Hezbollah tunnel was discovered and destroyed in 2019. More almost certainly exist, Galil said. Hezbollah said its snipers targeted military surveillance cameras in the area.
“If something like this happens here like in the south, we will fight, but we will be killed,” he said.
He and his security colleague are already shocked that Hezbollah is firing antitank missiles into the city and expect the Israeli military to take the brunt of the fighting. But they would stay to help, he said.
“We can’t leave,” said Ofer Maman, 48, a mushroom farmer. “Now we’re part of the army.”