Neighbours of Hezbollah: Israeli border community exposed to constant attacks by the terror group

Six months after Yulia Bar-Dan and her family fled their home on a kibbutz in northern Israel for fear of a possible Hezbollah attack following the horrific October 7 Hamas attack, she returned to piece together what she could from the life's memories she left behind.

An hour was all she had. “We had our first chance to go home under the cover of darkness,” she told Fox News Digital. “I cried the whole time.”

When she arrived, Kibbutz Manara, which once housed nearly 300 people, looked like a war zone. “We heard explosions above us and rushed to our house – the one closest to the Lebanese border. There was no electricity and we couldn't open the windows,” she said.

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With a flashlight in hand, she went from room to room, packing as much as she could into a large garbage bag. The family of five now lives in a single room and there isn't much room for extra stuff. “My daughter wanted her dollhouse, but I couldn't bring it. The happiest moment was when we found our cat alive. Seeing him brought great joy to the children,” she says.

Shortly after she packed up her things and left the kibbutz, a Hezbollah rocket hit her house. This makes her house one of an incredible 75 percent of all kibbutz buildings in the north that have been damaged by Hezbollah's relentless bombardment.

Since Hezbollah entered the war on October 8 as a “support front” for Hamas, over 7,500 rockets have been fired into Israel from Lebanon and more than 200 drones have crossed the border. The result: 44 people have been killed, 271 injured and 62,000 evacuated from dozens of communities in northern Israel. Those who have left have no idea when – or if – they will ever return. Damage to agriculture and tourism has reached billions of dollars, and there is widespread fear that this conflict will continue to escalate.

With Lebanon in the background: Yulia Bar-Dan and her husband Nadav during quieter times in Kibbutz Manara. (Julia Bar-Dan)

The decision to evacuate most of the northern communities immediately after October 7 did not come from the government, which was slow to react. It came from the residents themselves. “It is sheer luck that Hezbollah's Radwan forces did not join Hamas in the massacre; otherwise nothing could have stopped them,” says Yochai Wolfin, the community director of Kibbutz Manara. “We are right on the border and at high risk. We have known for at least ten years that Hezbollah's Radwan forces have a plan that they have been training to invade the Galilee, take over several communities and do here exactly what we saw in the south.”

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A picture taken on December 20, 2020 in Kibbutz Manara shows a Lebanese man holding a Hezbollah flag in the southern Lebanese village of Hula. (Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images)

Naor Shamia, who has lived in Kibbutz Manara with his wife and three children since 2011, does not sugarcoat the reaction of the people living near the northern border after October 7. “We ran away. We were terribly afraid that they would slaughter us, like they did in the Gaza Strip,” he recalls.

Since Oct. 7, Shamia, who normally teaches math and physics, has focused on leading the kibbutz's rapid reaction force – a group of community members with combat experience – tasked with fending off terrorist infiltrations, rocket fire and even forest fires caused by hot shrapnel or rocket impacts. “Much of Kibbutz Manara is visible from Lebanon, which makes our situation even more difficult,” Shamia says. “You can walk through parts of the kibbutz and be fully exposed to Hezbollah.”

A house in the kibbutz damaged by Hezbollah rockets. (Kibbutz Manara Rapid Response Unit)

In December, when members of the rapid reaction force rushed to a fire caused by an anti-tank missile, Hezbollah fired three more rockets, wounding two members of the unit. “Manara is on a high ridge, which makes us an easy target for anti-tank missiles,” says Shamia. “We are unprotected.”

Founded in 1943, the kibbutz's economy was based primarily on agriculture, including a famous vineyard, cherry and apple orchards, and poultry farming. Today, much of it has been destroyed by Hezbollah's rockets. The vineyard was burned down and the orchards, located in frequently attacked areas, were abandoned.

An aluminum business run by Julia's husband, Nadav, was also destroyed by a rocket attack. Since then, he has served in the rapid reaction force, while Bar-Dan lives with her three children in a single room on a kibbutz in the north, but far from the border.

This photo taken from a position in northern Israel shows a Hezbollah drone intercepted by the Israeli Air Force over northern Israel on August 25, 2024. (Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images)

“There is no official declaration of war here, but we live as if there is a war and are constantly bombarded by drones and missiles,” she says. “The children go to school, but today they were in a shelter for two hours because of rocket fire. People may ask, 'Why don't you move somewhere else?' But this is our home. I can't imagine living anywhere else.”

She continued: “What would happen if she and others packed up their tents and left the northernmost regions of Israel? Manara is on the border. If we are not there, who will be? We have to come back.”

Hezbollah terrorists conduct a training exercise in southern Lebanon in May 2023. (AP/Hassan Ammar)

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She hopes for the day when the government understands what is at stake “and does what is necessary to change the situation in the north. While the world's attention is focused elsewhere,” she adds, “the war between Israel and Hezbollah has left northern Israel in a state of devastation.”