Israelis evacuated from Lebanese border wonder if they’ll ever return
KIRYAT SHMONA, Israel — For four years, Sivan Shoshani Partush recruited families for Kibbutz Malkiya, a community of around 400 that she calls her “little slice of heaven.” It wasn’t a hard sell: spacious homes, beautiful nature, paths winding through manicured lawns, and a slower pace of life than in Israel’s frantic cities.
The border with Lebanon is just 200 meters (650 feet) away. Partush would pass it on her daily runs, a feature of the landscape just like the view of the snow-topped Hermon Mountain in the winter.
“There was fear, but I got over it, because that’s the choice I made, because someone was protecting me,” said Partush. “But now there’s a feeling that no one is protecting us.”
Among approximately 60,000 Israelis evacuated from northern Israel after months of cross-border fighting, Partush and her children are staying temporarily in another kibbutz, and she isn’t sure if she wants to return to Malkiya. Nearly 91,000 people from south Lebanon have also been displaced.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group began launching rockets towards Israel one day after Hamasled militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostage. More than 31,000 people have been killed in Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. There has been near-daily violence along the Lebanon-israel border and international mediators are scrambling to prevent an all-out war between Hezbollah and Israel.
The fighting has killed eight civilians and 11 soldiers in Israel. More than 200 Hezbollah fighters and about 40 civilians have died in Lebanon.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said the Israeli military is concentrating on Gaza, but that Israel has a simple aim in Lebanon: to push Hezbollah away from the border, either by diplomacy or force.
So far, that hasn’t happened. Israel said it has targeted 4,500 Hezbollah sites in the past five months. But Hezbollah’s wellstocked and deeply entrenched militants continue to launch rockets, and Israel said the militants have attempted to or have actually crossed the border half a dozen times.
Partush is grimly resigned to the reality that it may be a year before she can return home, if she ever goes back, and she struggles to explain what would make her feel safe in the post-oct. 7 world. The reality of living next to Lebanon has irrevocably changed, she said.
“They need to create a security belt, we need to have an Israeli army presence always, and they need to strengthen the emergency squads so not even a mouse can pass through the border,” she said.
Some in her kibbutz are doubtful about returning, and it’s hurting their tight-knit community, said Partush.
“We want to go home, but on the other hand, where will we go? It’s very scary,” she said.
Many Israelis who evacuated from the Gaza border after the Hamas attack have returned home in recent weeks. Those from the hardest-hit kibbutzim are moving to semi-permanent housing while their homes are rebuilt.
In Sderot, the largest city near Gaza with some 30,000 residents, life is starting to return to normal. Schools reopened this month. City streets, deserted in the early days of the war, are bustling again. Stores and cafes are doing brisk business, even as the conflict continues just a few kilometers away.
Some 30,000 displaced Israelis are living in hotel rooms across the country as the war enters its sixth month, according to the Prime Minister’s Office. Others have moved to rented apartments or are staying with family.
From their cramped hotel rooms, evacuees from Israel’s north have been watching news reports showing Sderot’s residents return home with mixed feelings, aware their journey is far from over.
Israelis who have grown up under the shadow of rockets from Lebanon no longer find it tolerable.
“I don’t want my daughters to grow up like I did,” said Michal Nidam, a high school counselor from Kiryat Shmona, the largest city in Israel’s north, which has suffered rocket fire from Lebanon for decades. “I have had anxiety since I was little. I used to sleep with my fingers in my ears, under the bed, and many times I slept with shoes and clothes on.”