Border town Israelis fear all-out war with Hezbollah now ‘inevitable’

Residents bolster defences in northern communities as cross-border strikes escalate by the day

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A thunderous boom from nearby Israeli artillery fire sends Mancha, Lior Shelef’s six-year-old dog, scurrying back inside his two-storey home in Kibbutz Snir, a few kilometres south of the border with Lebanon.

“She’s completely messed up,” Mr Shelef says of his beloved white and brown Canaan, who remains scared of the rockets and artillery fire that for the past eight months have echoed in the rugged region, in the shadow of Mount Hermon.

Mr Shelef, 48, an army reservist, was born and raised in the kibbutz, in the north-eastern corner of Israel, sandwiched between the occupied Golan Heights and Lebanon. He worked as a tour guide before the Gaza war began on October 7, but now relies on his military experience to help fortify his kibbutz from Hezbollah rocket fire.

He has arranged concrete blocks and sand bags to provide cover. He knows which parts of the community are vulnerable to missile fire and where not to linger. He has a full military kit ready to go on his driveway and rarely leaves the house without his rifle.

His front garden remains littered with children's toys, even though it has been eight months since his wife and three young children lived in the home he built for them.

Uprooted by fighting

Mr Shelef’s family are among the more than 60,000 Israelis the government ordered to leave after the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war in October, which led to a sharp increase in cross-border fire with Hezbollah. Tens of thousands of Lebanese have also been forced from their homes in fear of Israeli strikes on the south of their country.

His family now live in a hotel, a 30-minute drive from the kibbutz, out of range from Hezbollah attacks. But the emotional and psychological effects of this slow-burning conflict have already taken a toll.

“My kids are, I'll be very honest, completely messed up from this war,” Mr Shelef says. “They needed to change schools and kindergartens – they have no stability in their lives.”

It is the uncertainty of whether they will be able to return home that weighs most heavily on the Shelef family. "At the beginning of the war, we expected this would take a month or two," he says. "We're now at 255 days – just to say that sentence is crazy."

Dozens of residents-turned-guards like Mr Shelef have worked to keep the community's green lawns and colourful flower beds healthy. They have ensured its agricultural economy functions under hails of rockets and keep summer wildfires at bay so those who fled the violence do not return home to charred ruins.

Israel has long valued border settlements, including Snir, as a key means to guard the frontiers of the state. Despite the dozens of heavily armed, highly trained men that remain, Mr Shelef is worried about the survival of his community.

"In the first and second Lebanon wars, we established a buffer zone on their side of the border," he tells The National. "Today it's the other way round, something the government literally created themselves when they evacuated residents."

He says the Israeli government has failed to keep people in the north informed during the violence and, in recent weeks, the exchanges between the military and Hezbollah have increased sharply. “I need to see a future, I need to see a horizon, I need to see that someone will take care of me,” he adds.

A motorcyclist rides out of Ein Qiniyye, a Druze village in the occupied Golan Heights. Willy Lowry / The National

The bearded veteran said the situation along the border was “by far the worst” he had faced, partly because it has stripped him of his vision of the future.

“We chose to live here,” he says. “But I never felt as abandoned as I feel now and my love for my country hasn't changed. The problem is my love for my government … which is a bit of a problem.”

Need for diplomacy

As the conflict escalates, there is a growing fear in northern Israel that the worst is still ahead. “It seems like war is inevitable,” Mr Shelef says.

“I hope I'm wrong. What I hope for is a diplomatic decision, and I'm not just hoping for it for me. I am hoping for the people of Lebanon that that will happen for them. But people that live in the Mediterranean have blood in their veins that boils at 42 degrees on a daily basis. We are eager for fights."

On Monday, senior US envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in Israel to discuss the situation at the border.

Mr Hochstein, who helped to broker the 2022 agreement between Israel and Lebanon that demarcated the maritime boundary between the countries, has held regular meetings with Israeli and Lebanese officials in a bid to stave off a full conflict.

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  Wael Mugrabi, the mayor of Ein Qiniyye in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights says war with Hezbollah is already under way. All photos: Willy Lowry / The National

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  Lior Shelef with his Caananite dog Macha, in front of his home in Kibbutz Snir near the Israel Lebanon border

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  Backpacks left by children hang outside an empty school in Kibbutz Snir, which has been almost deserted since the start of the Israel-Gaza war

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  The slopes of Ein Qiniyye overlooking Israel and Lebanon in the distance

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  Lior Shelef stands in front of the house he built in Kibbutz Snir

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  One of the few bomb shelters in the Druze village of Ein Qiniyye

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  Toys left outside a nursery in Kibbutz Snir

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  A street sign in the near-empty Kibbutz Snir

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  Nearly all of the residents of Kibbutz Snir were ordered to leave their homes at the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war

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  Mr Mugrabi drinks from one of the springs that gives Ein Qiniyye its name

A few kilometres from Kibbutz Snir, a deafening clap of Israeli artillery fire sounds over Ein Qiniyye, a Druze village in the Golan Heights. The sound is so familiar to residents now that a mother and her toddler playing in a leafy park barely acknowledge it.

Unlike some in other villages along the border, Ein Qiniyye residents have remained in their homes. But the 2,500 people who make up the community are struggling because economic opportunities have evaporated since the conflict started.

“All the people still here have a big problem,” says Wael Mugrabi, a former karate champion who now serves as village mayor. “They don’t have [enough] money now because they are not working.”

Mr Mugrabi, who said he identifies as Israeli, echoed the sentiments of Mr Shelef as he accused the government of forgetting about his village amid the rising tensions. “They don’t give us anything here in the north,” he tells The National.

With regards to the increased fighting and the possibility of an all-out war with Hezbollah, Mr Mugrabi does not mince his words.

“I think we are in the war,” he says. “We have been in the war since three days after October 7.”