Erez Bergman has been working for months to encourage displaced residents from northern Israel near the Lebanese border to return to their homes, hoping that children can return to school this fall and residents can repair damage caused by Hezbollah missiles and drones.
Like 80,000 other Israelis from the north, Bergman, 51, his wife, Maya, and their three school-age children left their home in Kibbutz Snir last October after the Israeli government decided to move people away from the northern border, the first such mass exodus from the area in Israel's history.
Following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack and Israeli bombardment of Gaza, Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, causing the Israeli military to strike back, leading to months of retaliatory attacks that hit villages and towns in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.
In April, the Bergmans decided to return to their cooperative village of Snir in the picturesque Galilee peninsula, a finger of Israeli territory that juts out along the border. But in late July, as tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have reached a fever pitch in recent months, they had to leave again. This time, they're not sure how long they'll be gone for. Bergman and other northern residents say they now feel like they're facing “another lost year.”
Before the recent escalation of violence, Bergman had been spearheading a “return” project on behalf of the local council, aiming to bring back as many displaced people as possible before the start of the new school term on September 1. In mid-July, Bergman and his family returned “from Zionism,” he said, sitting at the family dinner table with panoramic views of southern Lebanon.
He hoped to revive his largely abandoned community and others in the region that have long embodied Israeli sovereignty and resilience.
Or, more simply, “I was tired of being in hotels,” he said.
Bergman said the family was already feeling unsure about the decision to return home after a night of intense crossfire.
A few days later, a missile landed at the bottom of the Bergmans' backyard, blowing out all the windows and causing damage inside the house. Thankfully, no one was home at the time.
Half of Sniir lies within direct line of sight of Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon, leaving it vulnerable. There was an eerie silence between explosions. Sniir's clinic and grocery store were not functioning. “It's like living in a graveyard,” Mr. Bergman said.
The family was unable to sit on the back terrace and lived in constant dim light with the curtains and blinds closed.
On July 23, Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kish announced that schools within the evacuation zone three miles from the border would not reopen next month because the risks were too great.
Then on July 27, a rocket from Lebanon killed 12 children in the Druze Arab village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israel subsequently assassinated senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr in Beirut. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened to retaliate for Shukr's killing, raising fears in both Israel and Lebanon that the cross-border hostilities could escalate into all-out war.
About a week ago, the Bergmans left again, staying 70 miles to the south at Beit Alfa Kibbutz. Bergman later said by phone that they were reconsidering their future in Snir. They plan to watch events unfold and wait out the approaching storm, he said.
Communities like Sniir's, founded decades ago by hardy pioneers who came to work the border and establish Israeli sovereignty over every last inch of territory, face uncertainty. As government funding for temporary alternative accommodation runs out, community leaders fear it will be economically weaker residents with fewer options who will return, and many young families will never return.
In the summer months, the Galilee is bustling with holidaymakers kayaking in the cool waters of the Jordan River and its tributaries, and many villages in the region offer holiday accommodation and usually derive substantial income from tourism.
This year, the hills, orchards and fields are a checkerboard of dry, scorched earth, the result of forest fires sparked mainly by frequent Hezbollah attacks.
So close to the border, there is little warning that shells are coming. Sirens usually sound only after a shell is intercepted or hits. Residents hear the roar of rocket engines and see drones flying overhead. The Bergmans' house has a fortified safe room, but many do not.
At least 22 Israeli soldiers and a similar number of civilians have been killed by Hezbollah fire from Lebanon since October 7. More than 460 people have been killed by Israeli artillery fire in Lebanon, most of them combatants but more than 100 were civilians, including 12 children and 21 medical workers, according to the United Nations and the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
Many of the Israelis who remain in frontline communities are now part of armed local emergency teams operating under the auspices of army reservists.
One of Sunil's ambulance workers, Lior Sheref, 48, said in mid-July that he was the only person left on his street.
Born and raised in Snir, Sheref remembers sleeping in a bomb shelter for three years as a child during Israel's first war in Lebanon in the 1980s.
“We want to make sure the kids who come back here have a better childhood,” he said, adding that his own family, who live in a hotel a 30-minute drive south, have no plans to move back, but “we're never giving up our home.”
Some Israelis want military action to drive Hezbollah forces away from the border permanently. But like some others here, Sheref seems ambivalent about the need for all-out war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, which would be devastating for both countries. Ultimately, peace can only be restored through a diplomatic solution, “with or without war,” he said.
One kibbutz that was not evacuated, Kfar Szold, is a few minutes' drive from Snir. Many of its members left anyway after October 7. But they did not receive government funding for alternative housing, and gradually more are returning.
Nitai Galili, 31, a naturopath from Kfar Szold, spent six weeks in Portugal from October 7 before returning home. The mother of a one-year-old, Galili said she was “in constant existential fear.”
Recently, a volley of rockets landed on the road outside the kibbutz, narrowly avoiding hitting two cars.
“We can hold out for about a month,” said Assaf Langreben, 49, Kfar Szold's chairman, “but there's no end in sight.”
