Metula in northern Israel is like a ghost town. Shops are shut, hotels closed and there’s very little sign of life.
This is the frontline of the fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and it feels otherworldly.
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After the October 7th attacks, most people evacuated this frontier town fearing an invasion.
In the following years, it was hammered by mortars and missiles fired from Hezbollah.
And now, yet again, the air is filled with the sound of gun fire and sirens.
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But next to a hollowed out hotel once popular with tourists is a pretty cafe with the doors open. Miry is stacking up the chairs after serving some young Israeli soldiers.
She’s remarkably upbeat and defiant, too. This time, she believes Israel will crush Hezbollah – an Iranian proxy that casts a long shadow over this town.
Life in extremis
“The fighting feels like we’re going to finish it – for once and for all,” she says.
“You need to understand Hezbollah is not a community group, and they’re not freedom fighters: they’re a terrorist organisation putting at risk not only the Israeli people, but the Lebanese people, and people around the world.”
They need to “eliminate” them, she says emphatically: “Like a cockroach.”
It sounds like extreme language, but life is lived in extremis here. The rubble, the military machinery, the trail of smoke from Israeli interceptors. There’s even concrete benches on a hill alongside picnic tables if you want to take a look-out over the destroyed homes across the border – the remnants of previous battles.
The latest confrontation with Hezbollah has seen fierce clashes and no let-up from either side.
And it’s not just the border areas in the crosshairs. Last week, one Israeli minister said his government would turn the southern suburbs of Beirut into Gaza.
Already hundreds of thousands of Lebanese people have been displaced – an exodus unmatched in Israel.
‘It’s difficult to live like this’
About 20 minutes drive from Metula is the northern city of Kiryat Shimona. Once a commercial and economic hub, it’s struggled to rebuild after many evacuated following October 7th.
Yamit Yanai Malul, a lawyer with two children, has spent years living with constant jeopardy.
“It’s difficult to live like this because you don’t know when the missile will catch you,” she says.
“Maybe in the supermarket, or maybe doing something with the kids, so you are always tense.”
And yet, she stays. And this time round, she’s hopeful it will make a difference.
“We have a part in this war,” she says.
“We don’t go and run away to another country and find shelter. This is the home and we stay here. And I think we help the government just by being here.”
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That sense of patriotic duty may live on for months, even years, to come. And she’ll likely need that enduring patience.
Destroying Hezbollah for good is a massive undertaking – no matter how weakened it is.
And in the meantime, it feels like a lot more could break out either side of the border and beyond – with civilians caught in the middle.