‘We live in darkness’: Bombed-out Metula’s last few residents hope to rebuild
Israeli border town, surrounded by hostile Lebanese villages, is a closed military zone, with most of its 2,200 residents still displaced – and some unsure they will ever come back
When darkness descends on Metula, Tamira Lang, one of the town’s last remaining residents, switches off her house lights to avoid detection by the Hezbollah terror group, with the border barely a kilometer away.
Lang, who is one of the local volunteers who make up Metula’s rapid-response security force, has already been wounded by shrapnel from a projectile and put out a fire caused by a rocket salvo in her next-door neighbor’s home.
“We live in darkness. If [Hezbollah] see light, I have no house,” she said, surveying damage to nearby homes that overlook the nearby Lebanese border.
Fearing a Hezbollah invasion, Israel evacuated northern border communities shortly after Hamas’s thousands-strong onslaught in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage, sparking the war in Gaza.
Some 60,000 northerners — including most of Metula’s roughly 2,200 residents — remain displaced amid Hezbollah’s relentless rocket fire, which began a day after Hamas’s shock assault. Israel invaded south Lebanon in late September to stem the attacks, which Hezbollah says are in support of Gaza. Israeli airstrikes and ground operations have left 1 million Lebanese uprooted from their homes.
The United States has led a renewed push in recent days to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. Washington’s envoy Amos Hochstein has been in the region since Tuesday, meeting with officials from Lebanon, Hezbollah and Israel. A senior Israeli defense official said Thursday that a ceasefire was highly likely, echoing Hochstein’s assessment.
As the talks continue, rocket sirens have sounded in Metula daily, usually more than once. On Thursday, sirens sounded there twice as of press time; farther south, in Nahariya, a man was killed by shrapnel as he took cover from a rocket barrage.
Parts of Metula, which was founded in 1896, have been destroyed, with many houses smashed up by mortars or missiles fired from the Lebanese villages that surround the enclave on which it is built, hundreds of meters (yards) away.
The periodic sound of artillery from Israeli batteries firing into Lebanon and a burning smell from bombed homes are constant reminders of the day-to-day reality for those who remain in Metula, which is currently a closed military zone.
“You don’t hear the sound of birds anymore,” Lang told Reuters, which visited the town this week. “The silence can also be deafening,” she said.
According to Liat Cohen-Raviv, an evacuated Metula resident currently living in the northern town of Rosh Pina, displaced northerners will need assurances before they move back.
“In order for me to come back, I need to know, first of all, that it’s safe, that I’m protected,” she said, noting past agreements had collapsed.
She also said residents were worried by the tunnels the IDF had discovered in Lebanon.
According to the army, Hezbollah was preparing the tunnels to mount a Hamas-like assault on Israel. A source close to Hezbollah also told Reuters last month the tunnels were built for the terror group’s Radwan special forces units to one day enter the Galilee region of northern Israel.
“Today, more than ever, you can’t allow this to be a weak border,” said Cohen-Raviv.
“Metula will need at least a year just to recover in terms of infrastructure,” she added.
Ukrainian-born Ruslan Bachinsky — like Lang, a member of Metula’s security detail — said Hezbollah has been firing less at the town as a result of Israel’s operations.
“But we know that something can happen in a moment… there is danger all the time,” he said. “I think we [need] more time [to finish operations in Lebanon]… Hezbollah is still next to Metula.”
A survey published by the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies in early November found that 80% of those polled said the current security situation does not allow most northern residents to go home.
Bachinsky said his pregnant wife, who has been evacuated from Metula, is not eager to return.
“We are expecting a girl in four months, and my wife doesn’t want to come back to Metula. So this is a problem,” he said. “So unfortunately, it will take time.”
