Danger in Israel’s north leaves evacuees in limbo

STORY: Seventeen-year-old Hadar Shusterman longs to return home to her northern Israeli village.

She’s one of more than 96,000 Israelis who have fled their homes near the Lebanese border since the October 7 Hamas attack…

fearing militant group Hezbollah could unleash a similar assault in the north.

“These guys (Hezbollah) are stronger than Hamas, can you imagine the things they can do to us?”

She and her family stay in a hotel just south of the evacuation zone, paid for by the government.

Returning home is unthinkable… but no one knows if, when or how the risk will be eliminated.

She has imagined Hezbollah militants coming in cars or boats to kill her and her family.

“It feels like a long day that never stops and never ends, and you’re just waiting for this day to end, because you feel like you can’t do anything, just gotta wait, it’s almost over – that’s the feeling you get.”

Israeli forces and the Iran-backed Hezbollah have been exchanging fire daily across the border since October 7.

Hezbollah says its attacks aim to draw Israeli forces north… and to deter Israel from carrying out a broader assault on Lebanon.

The clashes have killed at least one civilian and nine troops on the Israeli side…

and at least 23 civilians in Lebanon, where many people near the border have also fled their homes.

Hadar’s father Ran Shusterman returns to the family farm to work most days.

It’s only three miles from the border.

He says when they hear sirens or shelling, they run to the nearest bomb shelter or lay face down in the fields with their hands on their heads.

Orel Nimron works on Shusterman’s farm.

“It’s really hard, hard to deal with every day. I can tell you every day I come to work and I really am stressed, I ask myself is this the day it is going to explode…”

More than 117,000 Israelis are also displaced from southern areas close to Gaza…

The threat from Hamas and Hezbollah effectively make parts of Israel’s territory unliveable, something Israel says it won’t tolerate indefinitely.

Despite warlike rhetoric on both sides, recent skirmishes have not escalated into an all-out war like the one Israel is waging against Hamas…

where Gaza’s health ministry says more than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed.