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EILON, Israel – For years, David Shtift tried to convince the Israeli army that Hezbollah militants a mile away in Lebanon would follow through on their threats to attack Israel.
Shtift and his neighbors said they saw Hezbollah special forces gathering along the border and setting up guard posts in buildings ostensibly built to protect the environment. Sometimes they heard what sounded like underground tunnels being dug. The army claimed Israel's enemies were deterred and its borders impenetrable.
But the kibbutz, unwilling to take any risks, raised funds and devised contingency plans—purchasing long guns for its 25-member local defense unit, securing emergency sources of water and electricity, and building a military clinic.
When thousands of fighters led by Hamas – the Gaza Strip-based militant group with increasingly close ties to Hezbollah – breached Israel's southern border on October 7, slaughtering 1,200 people and taking 240 others hostage, Shtift bitterly felt the impact on residents What happened from Eilon was right to be worried.
How Hamas breached Israel's border defenses during the October 7 attack
“What happened in the South was exactly what we said could happen and could still happen here,” Shtift said. “It is real.”
At least 70,000 Israelis from the northern border evacuated their homes after the attack, turning the area – like the devastated south – into a closed military zone. Several Israeli battalions, consisting of thousands of soldiers, have moved in. On the other side of the border, Hezbollah fighters exchange blows.
This is not an official war zone. Yet explosions of Israeli artillery and Hezbollah rockets echo across the rocky mountains almost daily. According to the Israeli military, Hezbollah has used short-range mortars, Russian “Kornet” anti-tank missiles and thermobaric bombs to destroy homes in Israeli kibbutzim.
More than 120 Hezbollah fighters and at least 20 civilians, including three journalists, were killed in Lebanon. On the Israeli side, twelve soldiers and five civilians were killed.
On Tuesday, a suspected Israeli airstrike in Beirut killed Saleh Arouri, a senior Hamas official who helped the group manage its ties with Hezbollah and who was designated a “global terrorist” by the United States.
Senior Hamas leader killed in explosion in Beirut, group says
The strike heightened fears in the region that skirmishes in this volatile border region could lead to all-out war. Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah is viewed by Israel as a real army with highly advanced training and an arsenal of around 150,000 rockets. Many Israelis fear that their government is once again underestimating a deadly threat.
Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, warned in a speech on Wednesday that retaliation for Arouri's killing was imminent. And if Israel went to war with Lebanon, it would be “very, very, very costly,” he said.
Moshe Davidovich, the head of a local council that sent 40,000 people packing even before the official evacuation order took effect, said many residents viewed the battle on the northern front as a fight for their homes. But they struggled, he said, with questions about where they would live and how they would get their children to school. And they didn't trust their “non-government” in Jerusalem, where leaders are “consumed by politics and tactics – no strategy,” Davidovich said.
For the unprecedented number of Israeli evacuees from the north and south, the state appeared largely absent. It took weeks for the authorities to allow hotel stays and rental agreements. And people in the north have been given few answers about the condition of their homes or a timetable for their return.
Hamas attack puts kibbutzniks in strange and terrible twilight
The Israeli government may again be relying on “the illusion that agreements can be reached with our enemy,” Davidovich said before taking a call from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.
“Until October 6, we were considered the sheriff of the Middle East. After October 7, we are considered to have lost our deterrence capability,” he said. “There’s no question for us about winning that back.”
Israel is negotiating with the Lebanese government and representatives of Hezbollah – the country's dominant military and political force – to de-escalate the situation. But on Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told Amos Hochstein, a senior White House envoy, that there was only a “short window” for a diplomatic solution.
“We will bring back our citizens in the north and in the south,” Netanyahu said on Thursday. “We apply maximum force with the highest precision wherever it is needed.”
But many along the northern border have no trust in Netanyahu, who for years told Israelis that Hamas was contained in Gaza. Similar assurances about Hezbollah will be a hard sell here.
“What was before October 7 can never be again,” said Dotan Razili, a reserve soldier serving in his hometown of Kibbutz Eilon. He pointed to the zigzagging border wall — part concrete, part barbed wire, augmented by high-tech sensors and cameras that feed into monitors at nearby military bases. After Hamas used grenade-loaded drones and snipers to fire cameras at the Gaza border, the “smart wall” no longer felt sufficient, he said.
“We fell in love with technology and forgot some very important and fundamental things,” Razili said.
How Hamas broke Israel's Iron Wall
He said his units adopted low-tech solutions, relying on Israel Defense Forces strategy manuals from the 1950s and old-fashioned radio telephones.
Although Hezbollah forces have withdrawn from the border in recent weeks, he said after October 7, “No Israeli can ever say that something like this could never happen again.”
Israeli officials are floating the idea of buffer zones – similar to those that existed when Israel occupied southern Lebanon from 1985 to 2000 – extending about four kilometers (2.5 miles) within southern Lebanon and several kilometers within the Gaza Strip, one Enclave that is only 12 kilometers long (7.5 miles) wide. Netanyahu also said that Israel wants to control the Philadelphia Corridor, which runs along the Gaza-Egypt border.
Yossi Harpaz, a sociologist at Tel Aviv University, said there was a change in Israel's perception of defense – and the role of its border cities – after October 7.
“The buffer zone is now on our own territory, in the border areas,” which are now populated by soldiers instead of civilians, he said. October 7th was also a “violation of the IDF doctrine of shifting the fight to the enemy’s territory.”
Noam Erlich ran a craft beer company in Kibbutz Manara, a northern community that was evacuated on October 8 for the first time in its history. 86 of the city's 155 houses, including his, were destroyed. For him, the strength of border kibbutzim like Manara is a matter of national security.
“If Manara disappears, the next border line will be Kiryat Shmona,” he said, referring to an Israeli city further from the border. “Israel’s northern border will slowly reach Tel Aviv.”
“Without cooperation from the government, the kibbutzim cannot exist, and the government and infrastructure have collapsed,” said Tirtsa Valentine. Her mother, Rachel Rabin, was one of the founders of Kibbutz Manara and was the sister of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the last Israeli leader to come close to a peace agreement with the Palestinians.
“Buffer zones don’t work,” she said. “And if the only solutions being discussed are those that drag from one war to the next, then we are in trouble.”
Sarah Dadouch in Beirut contributed to this report.