Hezbollah’s Shadow: A Journey Through Northern Israel’s Conflict

My flight had lulled me into a false sense of security. El Al’s complimentary crisps made me feel as though I was going on just another holiday. A five-hour flight for a place in the sun, it doesn’t get more cliché than that.

The illusion breaks almost as soon as the plane hits the runway. Cutting through my sense of ease was a voice speaking through the tannoy, ‘Please can we have a round of applause for the members of the IDF who are on our flight today, we all hope you will bring the hostages home.’

A place in the sun Israel may be, but it is also a country in the midst of a protracted war on multiple fronts. Hezbollah has been striking mercilessly on the northern border, displacing thousands of Israeli families, all the while the IDF carries out its operations to drive out Hamas in the south following the atrocities of October 7.

All that was left of my obligatory ‘holiday’ in-flight crisps, and the willful ignorance that accompanied them, were the crumbs on my lap.

The next morning, I got the coach to Kiryat Shmona. Kiryat Shmona is one of the many areas in northern Israel abandoned by the local population in the wake of relentless attacks by Hezbollah. I had been briefed by my guide about the security situation, but nothing quite prepares you for the sight of a bulletproof jacket lying casually in the boot of your vehicle.

We met with the mayor of Kiryat Shmona, Avichai Stern. Avichai was sharp and presented himself as such, however, his tailored suit could not hide the eyes of a soul who bore the weight of his people’s suffering. Like many of the people I would meet on this trip, he was looking for answers and he was looking for help.

We toured the now abandoned city and the sites struck by Hezbollah rockets. I came upon a house that had been deserted. The damage was impossible to miss: the culmination of a life well lived reduced to rubble, burnt possessions strewn across the ash covered floor. The family’s laundry still hung on the washing line, a testament to how quickly your life can be turned upside down with Hezbollah as your neighbor.

A short drive away was the local nursery. Scorch marks engulfed a children’s cartoon on the wall and a bed of rubble lay next to the slide. The innocence of youth tarnished by the malevolence of war.

Ecological damage, too, has been inflicted. ELNET took me to a nearby forest to meet the commander of Israeli Fire and Rescue. We met at a local vantage point, which once overlooked a sea of green. Now the earth is grey and the trees black, shriveled as though they are trying to return underground.

The commander spoke of the traumatic experience faced by his crew, who often had to choose between staying on duty to fight fires spreading out across the region, or return to their families whose own homes may well have been ablaze themselves.

In what emerged as something of a theme, there was a sense of desperation in the commander’s tone. The message was very much, ‘help us, because we cannot sustain the status quo’.

We moved further north up a dusty road taking me to another vantage point, this time overlooking the southern Lebanon. There, we met with an experienced IDF colonel. He told us he could not guarantee our safety while we were there, with missiles and drone attacks now just part of everyday life in northern Israel.

The then peaceful landscape stood very much in contrast to this violent context. The colonel too warned that the current situation was untenable for Israel, with war on multiple fronts leading to an overstretched IDF with a reliance on an exhausted reserve force. The longstanding deployment of the IDF’s reserves has taken a personal toll on those registered, leading to family breakdown and even redundancy in some cases.

The message from the Israelis was clear. Something must be done. They wanted support from their Western allies, but that either way something would have to give.

The events that transpired the next day, 17 September, should have come as no surprise.

I was in a meeting in Jerusalem between a delegation of British and Israeli policy experts and commentators. Around halfway through, there was a flurry of activity as phones started pinging left, right and centre. Whatever the news was, it was big. A few moments later, we were informed that thousands of Hezbollah pagers had exploded, wounding a killing several high ups in the terrorist organization.

The attack was like something out of James Bond. The room filled with speculation about how this was orchestrated. Was it a cyber-attack? Had Mossad intercepted the devices months ago sabotaging them, waiting to strike – and if so why now?

The why became clear in the following days when the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced a ‘new phase’ in the war. A mission to drive out Hezbollah from the southern Lebanon and return the northern Israelis home.

Post-Iraq, we have a tendency in the West to not want to concern ourselves too much with the goings on in the Middle East. The reality is this is our war too.

Hezbollah is one of Iran’s many proxies, along with Hamas and the Houthis. The Houthis, of course, rose to notoriety earlier this year for their disruption of global supply chains by attacking passing merchant ships. These actions led to joint US-UK airstrikes against them.

Iran’s ambitions do not end with the eradication of the world’s only Jewish state. They continue to supply Russia with drones and missiles to attack civilian targets in Ukraine and they propagate disinformation campaigns across the West, including the UK, to sow division in our societies. The demonization and, ultimately, the defeat of Israel is just the start. Be in no doubt, their sights will be on us next.

The question now for Israel’s Western allies is, do we leave them to fight our war alone?