Metula, northern Israel —
The rooftops of a Lebanese village in an area currently set aside by the Israeli government as a “security buffer zone” can be seen from a border community in northern Israel. And for more than 60,000 Israelis living in remote towns, war with Hezbollah is not a distant reality.
Here, when a Hezbollah rocket fires an air raid siren, there is no gap between the warning and the shock. Unlike other parts of Israel, residents have only seconds to evacuate.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a further expansion of Lebanon’s internal military buffer zone to “finally deter the threat of invasion and move anti-missile threats away from our borders.” The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that Hezbollah was planning a ground attack on Israel in 2023 similar to Hamas’s October 7 attack.
The announcement was welcomed on the Israeli side of the border.
“This is what we expect from the IDF: to be in front of us, not behind us,” says Nisan Zeevi, a venture capital expert and third-generation resident of Kibbutz Kfar Giladi, located half a mile from two villages he says are Hezbollah strongholds. “We cannot be on the front lines with Hezbollah. We need troops in front of the enemy.”
Some 55,000 residents of northern Israel, who had been displaced for more than a year, will return home after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in November 2024, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reassuring that the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group was set up “many years back.”
Jeevi points out what happened after that. “Exactly a year ago, they sold us the promise that “we destroyed Hezbollah.” You can go home, you’re safe.” I was convincing new families to move here, and suddenly we were back in the same situation.”
Israel has carried out frequent attacks against Hezbollah targets during the ceasefire, but no rockets have been fired into Israel from southern Lebanon in more than a year. The situation changed on March 2, when Hezbollah opened fire on Israel, days after the United States and Israel vowed revenge for the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader and launched a war against Iran.
Israel’s response has been aggressive, with massive airstrikes against Hezbollah strongholds, including densely populated cities, the forced displacement of one million Lebanese with no option of return, and a full-scale Israeli ground invasion into the south of the country.
Netanyahu’s government has declared its intention to establish what it calls a permanent security buffer zone in southern Lebanon, aimed at keeping Hezbollah forces and its rocket arsenal away from the Israeli border. Israel occupied a similar security buffer zone in southern Lebanon from 1982 until 2000, when it was removed by Hezbollah.
Since the latest fighting began, Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at Israel, sometimes more than 500 a day. Last week, two Israeli civilians were killed. A 43-year-old father of four from Nahariya died when he was struck by debris while riding his bicycle to the evacuation center, while a 27-year-old woman from Moshav Margaliot died after stopping her car as sirens blared and taking shelter in a roadside ditch. A third civilian was killed by Israeli shelling. Nine Israeli soldiers were killed by Hezbollah’s anti-tank missile fire in southern Lebanon.
Israel’s strategy marks a deliberate shift from its post-October 7, 2023 approach. Rather than evacuating civilians from dangerous areas in Israel, the government chose to evacuate residents of southern Lebanon from their homes and establish a buffer zone on that side of the border.
An Israeli military official told CNN that the military is currently holding positions up to 10 kilometers deep in Lebanon. The government is aiming to go even further, targeting at least 18 military positions across the region and declaring plans to take control of territory as far north as the Litani River, about 15 to 20 miles north of the Israeli border.
Defense Minister Israel Katz explicitly cited the Gaza model, stating the principle that “where there are terrorists and missiles, there are no homes or residents.”
Human rights groups have repeatedly warned that Israel’s military operations in Gaza could amount to war crimes, including the lack of distinction between combatants and civilians and the destruction of civilian homes and infrastructure.
As Israeli forces move deeper into Lebanese territory, the human toll is mounting. More than 80 towns and villages have been emptied, more than 15% of the population has been displaced, and Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 1,200 people and injured thousands more, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Yet, for communities on the Israeli side of the border, Israel’s military plans in Lebanon are widely seen as the only way to achieve normalization.
Ofri Eliyahu, 40, a mother of three, stands inside the 1,500 square meter innovation hub opened in January by the grassroots initiative Habaita, which works to attract young professionals and start-ups to the area. Home to drone companies, edtech startups, and software companies. Investors are taking notice, she says. “They see strong people. People who don’t give up easily. That’s how we became a startup nation,” she says, explaining her vision of “Israel’s Silicon Valley,” before pausing, “And then the rockets come.”
Mr. Eliyahu is clear that he will not evacuate communities in northern Israel again.
“If you want to give Hezbollah a victory, choose an empty city,” she says. “Everyone who lives here has chosen to live here. It’s not the safest place, but it means a lot to live next to the border. You want to belong to something bigger than yourself.”
But at the same time as that determination, structural flaws and political priorities have exacerbated tensions between the Israeli government and the local population. A 2018 government plan called “Northern Shield” pledged to protect all residential and public buildings within 9 kilometers (5.6 miles) of the border. A January 2026 state inspector general report found that the plan was poorly implemented and that more than 42,000 residents, about one-fifth of the population, remained unprotected. Local mayors say the promised funds have not been transferred and the program remains incomplete.
Another concern is protecting Highway 90, the only highway connecting small, scattered communities in the north where a 27-year-old woman was killed last week. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system does not routinely protect highways, classifying them as “open areas,” a designation that has become a flashpoint. “Our daily life takes place between towns. We need towns to protect our roads,” Eliyahu says.
In Metula, Israel’s northernmost town, where 60% of homes were damaged in the last conflict and about 17% of residents have not returned, deputy parliament speaker Avi Nadiv points to schools that have not opened since October 2023. Founded more than 130 years ago, before the founding of Israel, the school now stands as a silent monument to broken continuity.
“I want the government to make sure we can climb places like Ritani,” he says. “I want to put the military in front of the people, not behind them. I feel safe when the military is in front of me.”
Nadib had only recently returned from refuge after his home was attacked by Hezbollah rockets during the last conflict. He speaks of Lebanese civilians crossing the border, recalling the workers who crossed into Metulah daily for jobs in tourism and agriculture before Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, drawing a clear line between Hezbollah and those who pose no threat to Israel. “If people want to live there instead of putting bombs under their houses, they can come back,” he says.
In Kuffar Giladi, Zevi envisions distant hopes. “We have no conflict with Lebanon. The Iranian proxies have made peace with us,” he said, as sirens blared again. “My dream is to drink coffee in Beirut.”
