On Israel's northern border, extremists resist under fire from Hezbollah

With his senses on alert, Yoni Yaakobi doesn't like to stay in one place for too long. Lebanon neglects its moshav (agricultural community) in Margaliot, right on the border. Since October 7, this farmer has swapped his overalls for a military uniform to ensure the security of the village. Hearing a suspicious noise, Yoni raises his worn face to the sky, stopping his nectarine picking. “Wearing this uniform is a risk,” explains the farmer. “Hezbollah knows me. They know what my car looks like. The army warned me that I was a target. But I will stay here until I die. He and a dozen other volunteers are alone despite the order to evacuate all communities within a 5 km radius of the border. His connected watch vibrates. A rocket alert is issued in another area in the north. “It’s 7 or 8 times a day now. The situation is getting worse,” noted the reservist.

Hezbollah and Israel at an impasse

In early June, debris from a salvo of projectiles caused large fires in a landscape dried out by the heat of the early summer of the Levant. In Margaliot, the reservists of the intervention unit fought alone with their water jets against the flames. “The firefighters didn’t want to come. The area is too exposed to Hezbollah fire,” Yoni explains, shrugging his shoulders: “The north has not been a government priority for a long time. » Nearly 2.47 acres of forest burned in two days.

As with every escalation, the images of the North on fire have once again highlighted the impasse between Hezbollah and Israel. Since October 7, the Lebanese “Party of God” has claimed to form a “solidarity front” with Hamas in Gaza by diverting Israel's military capabilities. In exchange, the Jewish state strikes the bases of Shiite militias. Engaged in a war of attrition and position, which has caused the evacuation of 60,000 people in Israel and nearly 100,000 in southern Lebanon since October 7, the extremists are advancing on a narrowing ridge line. as tensions increase.

Since May, Shiite militias have only intensified their attacks. “Hezbollah is adapting, changing the way it targets us using drones, which are harder to neutralize, and more precise anti-tank guided missiles,” said Ariel Frish, deputy security chief of Kiryat Shmona, the largest city. in northern Israel, where there are 2,000 inhabitants. its 24,000 inhabitants still live. He says the city has suffered nearly 570 attacks since October 7.

Citizens feel abandoned

Curly beard, yarmulke on his head and M-16 slung over his shoulder, Frish points to a hole in the road in a residential area where the windows of buildings were blown out by the explosion of a Falaq-1 missile carrying 40 kilos . explosives. “It’s a very sophisticated type of missile that Hezbollah started firing at the end of November,” worries this man, a former rabbi and school principal. He emphasized that this type of projectile cannot be stopped by the Iron Dome. “Every day that the North remains evacuated is a victory for Hezbollah,” Frish fumed, no longer believing in diplomatic agreements. “It’s time to move from reaction to action: we must eliminate the threat they pose. At any moment, they could invade us. To win the war, we must first fight it.

On June 5, two drone strikes killed one person and injured ten others in Hurfeish, an unevacuated Druze village. Officially, Hezbollah claimed the attacks were a response to recent, more intense Israeli strikes against Lebanon. Hezbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said Al Jazeera that the group's decision was not to “expand the war” because Iran does not want open confrontation with Israel.

However, escalation has shown otherwise. Israel retaliated on June 11 by killing Taleb Abdallah, one of Hamas' top commanders. Hezbollah responded the next day with a salvo of 170 rockets, some of which reached the city of Tiberias, 50 km south of the border, a first.

Collective impatience is growing in the North. “The government has abandoned us,” lamented Efrat Schechter, a resident of Kibbutz Sde Nehemia. Located 6 km from the border, this little green haven of 1,200 souls has not yet been evacuated: “We are now on the front line. Yet the government is doing nothing to ensure our safety. This mother of three describes a disrupted daily life: “It takes thirty minutes by car to access the first public services: the post office, doctors… The children are only in high school four hours a day, due to a lack of teachers. , and they take classes in shelters. What will the new school year look like? We are concerned about the education of our young people. Many families could leave and never return,” sighs this activist from Lobby 1701, a group of Israeli citizens campaigning for the safe return of border communities by the government and denouncing the lack of attention paid to their situation.

Verbal escalation

Even though Hezbollah's military capabilities are far superior to those of Hamas, that does not stop the besieged Jewish state from escalating its rhetoric. “We are ready for a very intense operation. One way or another, we will restore security to the north,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on June 5. Two days before his assurance, Israeli army chief Herzl Halevi said: “We are approaching the time when a decision will be made. must be done. The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is ready to go on the offensive.” In May, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that the summer would be “hot.” France and the United States have been trying for months to reach a diplomatic solution, but for it to be finalized it first requires a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, which is still pending. As that prospect recedes, the likelihood of a larger-scale confrontation seems inevitable, at least for the northerners.

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From the 1923 border to the “Blue Line”

1923: France and the United Kingdom, the two mandatory powers in the region after the First World War, drew a first border between current Lebanon and what would become Israel.

1948: Since the creation of the State of Israel, the border has been maintained.

2000: After 18 years of occupation, the Jewish state withdrew from southern Lebanon (1978-2000), and the UN reestablished the border, known as the “Blue Line”. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) provides security in this border area.