GESHER HAZIV – This Western Galilee kibbutz, traditionally a popular stop for visitors headed to destinations farther north, is now the final stop immediately before the evacuated zone and sits on the very edge of what’s become Israel’s de facto northern border.
Since October 8, when Hezbollah began attacking Israel, with the terror group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there, the Israeli government has evacuated almost the entire civilian population from the area close to the border with Lebanon, about 61,000 people. The kibbutz is about 5.1 kilometers (3.1 miles) from the northern border, and only 100 meters (.06 miles) south of the evacuation zone.
As drones fell in surrounding areas last week, David Amzel, a Gesher Haziv native, was working in the back room of his bakery café, Lechem Tene, rolling out loaves of bread and coating them with poppy seeds, his rifle hanging nearby. A kibbutz’s emergency response team member, he juggles guard duty with bread-baking, stealing a few hours here and there for sleep.
“I left the army when I was 21, I was in the reserves until I was 27, and then I left Israel for years,” Amzel told The Times of Israel at the bakery, which is set on a hilltop olive grove with outdoor tables. Just down below to the west is the Mediterranean Sea; to the east is a valley that rolls toward distant hills.
“I’m 51 now and I never thought I would wear a uniform again,” Amzel said. “It was completely not in my mindset, my lexicon. But my first thought after October 7 was how I was going to get my hands on a gun.”
As Israel remains on heightened alert for a retaliatory response from Hezbollah and Iran over the recent assassinations of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Fuad Shakar in Beirut, Amzel said he and some 1,100 residents who’ve remained on the kibbutz — about 70% of the population — must adjust themselves to an ever increasingly edgy reality, where pastoral beauty collides with hyper-vigilance.
Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis. So far, the skirmishes have resulted in 26 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 19 IDF soldiers and reservists, most recently the death of Chief Warrant Officer Mahmood Amaria, 45, a tracker in the 300th “Baram” Regional Brigade, from Ibtin who died August 19 in a Hezbollah drone attack.
A second explosives-laden drone sent by Hezbollah on August 19 fell close to Kibbutz Gesher HaZiv.
“What happened on October 7 completely opened my eyes,” Amzel said, when some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
“I never looked at the mountain range to our north and thought there’s any kind of real threat from there,” he said. Amzel said he had always been more concerned with perfecting different kinds of breads, croissants, and pastries.
Yet behind the mountains is where the Iranian-backed terror group has stockpiled 130,000 to 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed in Israel’s direction.
Since the war began, to stay afloat, Amzel cut back his hours, his products, and his staff. He has managed to keep the place open not only because “people count on the bread,” but also for the people in the kibbutz and surrounding areas to come and meet and “not feel alone.”
“The way my brain works is that I see reality on the ground,” he said. “You can have ideals, but in the end, you have to change your ideals to fit the reality.”
A new reality
Of the 400 families who lived on the kibbutz before October 7, a third have “self-evacuated,” and moved away. Some have rented their houses to families who were displaced from communities farther north; others aren’t sure when – or if – they’ll return. Residents say their families in other parts of the country stopped visiting them or urged them to leave.
Before October 7, the kibbutz drew countless visitors for its boutique foodie offerings. There was Nave Chef Knives (still open) and Achziv Winery, which used to produce 1,500 bottles of wine a year, now closed.
The grand opening of Jack’s Restaurant was canceled in mid-October, and the owners said they are waiting for the situation to improve. Through the windows of the upscale delicatessen, one can still see food and cups left on tables like in a still-life; on the terrace, umbrellas are rolled up and the area is poked with weeds.
Founded in 1949, the kibbutz is located on a site used by the British Army during World War II. Some of the original buildings have been renovated and turned into new businesses, including an art gallery, now closed.
The first kibbutz members included 120 immigrants from the Habonim Labor Zionist youth movement in North America, as well as former members of Kibbutz Beit HaArava, evacuated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
The original kibbutz stressed communal life; children slept in a children’s house, salaries were pooled, and members ate in the dining room. In the 1990s, the kibbutz was privatized, adapting itself to a changing economy. The war is the latest challenging new reality.
Socks in our shoes
Looking around her beautiful garden with its specimen trees and an outdoor shower decorated with seashells, Galia Hadani Sharif, who lives with her husband, Amir, and their four children on the kibbutz, said it’s always in “the back of my consciousness that we’re living in a war zone.”
“We each have a pair of socks in our shoes so we can escape fast,” Sharif said. “We have a bag packed with our passports, a First Aid Kit, and money. We know the path we’ll take to escape to the fields and which way we’re going to run.”
It takes a lot of mental effort to live on the kibbutz now, Sharif said. Most families with young children have left. The main road that ran through a row of looming pine trees is now empty.
“It’s so quiet and people are depressed,” Sharif said. “The tension in the air is very present. It feels as if the situation is eating away at me slowly.”
Each morning, she swims in a part of the sea that isn’t off-limits so she can maintain a sense of the “power of nature.”
“Nobody can take away my ability to do good for myself,” she said.
But the war has forced changes in their lives. Her husband used to teach in the high school located on the kibbutz. At the start of the war, the school was closed for security reasons and relocated to Kiryat Bialik, 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) away. The family had to buy a second car for his commute, which is more than an hour each way.
Sharif said they had relocated to her mother’s house in central Israel for two months after October 7, but they returned, despite the difficulties, because “it’s our home.”
Still others, like Margie Lewis, who has lived on the kibbutz since 1966, aren’t sure staying is the right choice.
“I hope I won’t look back and regret my foolish decision,” Lewis said.
The war took everything away
At the kibbutz entrance are a gas station, a convenience store, and two restaurants.
“People used to have to wait an hour for pizza, I was that busy,” said Pizza Fornetto owner Nir Givati as he stood by his brick oven, pulling out a fresh Margherita pie. “My business is now 10 percent of what it used to be.”
He said that the government gave him and other local business owners reparations but the war “took everything away.” He has been an independent restaurant owner for 40 years and feels he’s had enough.
“To run a business in Israel is suicide; to run a business in the war is even worse,” he said.
“I’m pessimistic about the whole country,” he said. “But there’s nobody to repair what’s wrong.”
At Humus Eliahu next door, owner Ran Waizman also said that business was way down, and “nobody knows what will be.”
“We’ve had to get used to the situation,” said Karin Michael who commutes from the town of Kfar Yasif to work at the convenience store. The store used to do brisk business selling matkot, wooden paddleball rackets, inflatable balls, and floats. But the coast with rocks jutting out into the emerald water, usually lined with swimmers, fishermen, and campers, is deserted.
It’s important to stay
David’s wife Vivian Prinsbo Amzel is an artist and also a cook at Lechem Tene, their bakery. Before she began sautéeing onions for the café’s Friday morning customers, she sat down for a quick break, explaining that it’s the only day of the week that is busy anymore.
After October 7, the couple and their two children moved from a “hippie house with mud walls and a wooden floor” to a house with a protected room, where their son, 11, sleeps every night.
“Terrorists want us to be afraid and run away,” she said. “But it’s important we stay.”
“We are taught to love our enemies,” said Prinsbo Amzel, a self-described believing Christian who grew up in what was once Transvaal, South Africa. “That means to love them and pray that they turn from their ways and that they, in turn, love their neighbors.”
She said she tries to be positive, and that her faith brings hope.
“I argue with my leftist friends who are in despair,” she said. “But Israel is finding its moral compass. When I look around, I see beauty, courage, and strength.”
