Hezbollah’s Radwan force planned to invade Israel from this village; now the IDF controls it
Much of Kafr Kila, a central Hezbollah hub on the border with Israel, is now destroyed, as a monthlong Israeli ground offensive in south Lebanon uproots terrorist infrastructure
Reporter at The Times of Israel
KAFR KILA, southern Lebanon – Only an hour after a barrage of Hezbollah rockets was fired into northern Israel on Monday morning, The Times of Israel and other journalists rode in a convoy of armored personnel carriers through Metula — now a ghost town on Israel’s northern border — directly into the southern Lebanon war zone.
Wearing helmets and flak jackets, the press corps entered Kafr Kila, a border village that until recently was a central hub for Hezbollah, one of the world’s largest and wealthiest terrorist groups, and was set to be a launchpad for an invasion of Israel.
The Hezbollah plan, “Conquest of the Galilee,” envisioned that the Radwan Forces would “storm the border from here, invade and capture Metula,” and set about killing and kidnapping residents as Hamas did in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Col. Avraham Marciano, the commander of the 769th “Hiram” Brigade, a regional unit normally responsible for the eastern portion of the border with Lebanon.
In late September, IDF troops instructed Kafr Kila’s 3,000 residents to leave the area. Then, after weeks of intense fighting, troops cleared the village of most of the Hezbollah terrorists.
Marciano, who was serving as our guide, pointed to a mound of debris 50 yards (50 meters) from where we stood. Here, he said, troops uncovered an underground shaft that ran for several hundred yards, almost reaching the border wall with Israel.
“Several battalions of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit were planning to go into the shaft from the village’s main street and get equipment they had stored there,” Marciano said. The IDF has found thousands of weapons, launchers, and tactical equipment belonging to the fighters of Hezbollah’s elite force in the village.
The terrorists would then emerge from the shaft opening only a few minutes’ walk from the border wall. Just on the other side is a residential neighborhood of Metula.
“They would have entered and killed and done all the unbearable things that were done on October 7 in the south,” he said.
A limited ground incursion
Hezbollah began striking northern Israel a day after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, invasion, when 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists slaughtered some 1,200 people in a rampage through southern Israel and kidnapped 251 to Gaza.
After suffering nearly a year of Hezbollah cross-border rocket and drone attacks that forced 60,000 residents of northern Israel from their homes, Israel dramatically stepped up its operations in September, with strikes against commanders in the field and senior leaders in Beirut, and attacks on the terror group’s weaponry that crippled much of its capabilities.
While the IDF, including the 769th Brigade, had been operating close to the northern border since last October 8, it began an overt ground incursion only at the end of September this year — a limited operation targeting Hezbollah gunmen and infrastructure relatively close to the border.
The battles in southern Lebanon have been fierce and deadly, especially in the past week. Israel has been reeling from the loss of 17 soldiers — all but one of them reservists. Over the year of conflict, 60 IDF soldiers have died in the cross-border skirmishes and the ground operation.
The IDF estimates that more than 2,000 Hezbollah operatives have been killed in the conflict. Around 100 members of other terror groups, along with hundreds of civilians, have also been reported killed in Lebanon.
Driving into enemy territory
Our convoy of journalists entered Lebanon near Fatima Gate, once known as the Good Fence Crossing, which was used from 1982 to 2000 during Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon.
Oskar Lawther, a driver of one of the APCs in the 769th Brigade, said that when he used to drive in a patrol car on the Israeli side of the border, he always wondered what it was like on this — the other — side.
Our first stop, a strategic lookout onto Israel on the edge of Kafr Kila, could have been the perfect picturesque pause on a hike. “This is a historic vantage point… Radwan leaders used to come here and look down into Israel,” Marciano said as he stood with the journalists on the hilltop. “This is where Hezbollah operatives observed Israel and aimed at citizens’ houses.”
From here, terrorists made a direct hit on a house in Kfar Yuval in January, killing Barak Ayalon, 45, a member of the community’s security team, and his mother, Miri Ayalon, 76.
“In every house in this village were weapons, Hezbollah flags, and photos of Nasrallah and other Hezbollah leaders,” Marciano said, adding that everyone who lived here in Kafr Kila had ties to Hezbollah.
“We better get moving quickly,” he said, glancing around cautiously. “An anti-tank missile landed where we are standing two days ago.”
The craziness of the Middle East
The soldiers and press corps moved carefully up the hill, stepping around a rocket casing and other debris.
Marciano gave a short briefing with a view of the village.
“We had a checklist of what we needed to do, and we’ve accomplished about 65 percent of our goals,” Marciano said.
All around the rocky hillside were evacuated houses — some completely destroyed, others still standing.
“Hezbollah was here, and now we’re here,” Marciano said. “Our goal is to destroy all the Hezbollah infrastructure so they don’t return.”
Although he claimed to be an optimist, he also said the army is dealing with the balagan, or craziness, of the Middle East.
“I’m not a prophet,” he went on. “I can’t say that Hezbollah will never come back here. But I want to make the area free from Hezbollah so my children won’t have to fight.”
He paused. “Maybe my grandchildren will have to fight,” he said, “but not my kids.”
The day after
When asked what the army’s goals are in this war, Marciano replied that in 2006, Israel signed a ceasefire with Hezbollah after 34 days of fighting without a decisive victory.
The war ended when Israel, Hezbollah, and the Lebanese government agreed to UN Resolution 1701, which required Hezbollah to disarm and withdraw north of the Litani River — terms that were never enforced.
At the time, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an IDF airstrike in Beirut on September 27, boasted that Israel was “weaker than a spider’s web.”
Over the subsequent 18 years, Hezbollah established bases in villages throughout southern Lebanon, creeping closer and closer to the border. In December, the IDF said that Hezollah used “the infrastructure in the area for terror purposes, exploiting the civilian population and using it as a human shield for its operations.”
“This is not 2006,” said reservist Efraim Feiglin, guarding the press corps. “This time, we will continue to victory.”
It isn’t clear what exactly victory means or who will return to Kafr Kila and other villages once controlled by Hezbollah after the fighting ends.
For now, however, Marciano is focused on completing one of the Israeli government’s stated war goals: “We will do everything we have to do so that people can return to their homes in the north. We’ll stay as long as it takes to do the job.”
Jump scares
Parts of the Lebanese side of the border wall that we passed on our trip were covered with standard graffiti — scribbles in English with hearts and people’s names — along with propaganda-style drawings of Hezbollah leaders.
Further on, the wall also bore evidence of Israeli troops’ presence, with words recently written in Hebrew that said, “You wanted it, you got it.”
This meant, said driver Lawther, “that Hezbollah had wanted the war, and that is what they got.”
IDF bulldozers moved slowly through the village, clearing wreckage. There were still booby-trapped buildings to be searched, terrorist cells to be dismantled, and hidden forces to contend with, Marciano said.
Soldiers from the Golani Brigade, as well as from the paratroopers, were working together to clear the village of gunmen, he said, highlighting the cooperation between two units known for their long-standing rivalry.
Marciano walked us past a gas station he said was once owned by Hezbollah, now destroyed, directly across from the border wall.
In the distance, on the other side of the hill, there was a sudden, loud explosion from artillery shelling, making this reporter jump.
“It’s good for your adrenaline,” a soldier said lightly. “It gets your heart pumping.”
The Times of Israel Community.