2023-10-23 22:14:53
The Mediterranean Sea lies calm. Meanwhile, the sky that covers it roars. Among the greenery of the frontera North of Israelthe drums of guerra They sound modest. The few people left in this region, after the evacuation of about 40 municipalities, add more green to the landscape. They are groups of Israeli Army soldiers who patrol the roads, while awaiting the final provocation of the Lebanese militia. Hezbollah in order to respond. “If Hezbollah keeps looking for us, he will find us,” says military spokesman Roni Kaplan. The recruits remain silent before the press, but when the recorder turns off, they confess to feeling safe on that same border where dozens of people have already died in the clashes. The concern of these young men, armed with a rifle, is that this weekend’s Classic will catch them still in service.
“Although I hate missing the game, there is nowhere else I would want to be,” explains an electrical engineer deployed since October 7 on Israel’s northern border. “I have friends who are not reservists and who are at home looking forward to being called up,” he adds without sharing his name in a moment of rest. They all agree that they follow orders from their leaders, they feel safe and prepared for the moment when the climbing of the north is definitive. In front of the locked door of Kibbutz Rosh HaNikra, the last town before the border with the Lebanon, awaits a lone soldier who, until his evacuation, resided in this community. “Israel is waiting for them to attack it and it has not started attacking itself,” he points out for El Periódico de Catalunya, from the Prensa Ibérica group.
Since the fateful October 7, Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas e Iran, has fired dozens of anti-tank guided missiles, rockets and mortars at Israeli military positions and cities. There have also been incursions by armed men, some affiliated with armed groups Palestinians settled in Lebanon. Each of these attacks have been responded to by the Israeli Army. Hezbollah has confirmed that 25 of its militants have been killed since the start of the Hamas offensive and three civilians, including a journalist, have perished on the Lebanese side. “In strategic terms, we have no intention of opening a new front in this war with Hezbollah but they are doing everything in their power to challenge us by launching specific and constant attacks,” Kaplan tells this newspaper.
A greater threat
“The question is for the population of Lebanon and the Lebanese Republic: do they want to put their future at risk to help Hezbollah and drag the entire region into a war?”, rebukes this Israeli captain, born in Montevideo. Although soldiers deployed on the leafy border with Lebanon, guarded by UN blue helmets, they appear confident, they do not hesitate to recognize that the enemy is powerful. “Hezbollah is not Hamas, Hezbollah is a threat because they are an orderly and trained army,” explains another recruit in his early twenties stationed three kilometers from his enemy’s positions. Without official figures, the Lebanese militia could count on 100,000 well-trained fighters and thousands of rockets targeting Israel.
These young recruits have been patrolling the forests and fields of the Lebanese border for weeks, which on the other side has also been evacuated. Some are more eager for action than others. “If I see a terrorist from Hezbollah, I feel like giving it a thump-thump,” says a soldier, amused, while pointing at his rifle. “Hezbollah wants to come and occupy our country and kill civiliansand not soldiers“, It is justified. The massive Hamas attack that left at least 1,400 dead in Israel and 222 kidnapped in Gaza, has stirred Israeli consciences. “If you ask me what I want, I want the enemy to be killed,” says Yehuda, a 70-year-old farmer who lives on a kibbutz in the northern Galilee. “I’m too old to fight, but I’m here helping a unit,” he says.
“Front line against terror”
This historical moment is even making some rethink their idea of the State. “If it were up to me, this country, born driven by Europe’s guilt for not having acted as it should during the Second World War, would not have to be here, in the middle of Arab countries, but rather they could have put it in Canada, or in some other place like that,” Yehuda declares to El Periódico de Catalunya. Kaplan picks up an idea that many Israelis repeat these days after similarizing the crimes of Hamas with those committed by the Islamic State. “We are here to defend our families, our citizens, as the first line of the fight against terror in the West and in the free world,” he tells this newspaper.
From this green and silent place, the sporadic Hezbollah rockets sound loudly. But no one mentions the increasing power of their own projectiles that have not stopped impacting the Gaza Strip in the last 17 days with its 17 nights. There are already more than 5,087 people killed by Israeli bombings, including 2,055 children. Hundreds of people remain missing under the rubble while the few hospitals that can still operate amid the total Israeli blockade try to treat the 15,200 injured. Hamas has freed two hostages at the border crossing in Rafacon Egypt. Outside Israeli borders, American voices are beginning to warn their ally that perhaps invasion land of the Palestinian enclave is not the best strategy.
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