Operation Al Aqsa Flood was the pinnacle result of months and years of planning and training. The Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters who launched the raids into Israel on October 7 chose their targets on the other side of the border from Gaza with a meticulousness which might rival operational planning in regular militaries. The depth and scope of the raids were matched only by their brutality and is to date the largest terrorist attack in Israeli history. Despite this, the raid's planners had had far grander objectives than a sole attack into southern Israel. In fact, Al Aqsa Flood had been meant to be a clarion call for larger attacks from Hezbollah in the north, and affiliates in the West Bank. The goal, in Hamas' own words, was the total overrunning of every city, town and village, in what would have been a shocking replication of October 7 across Israel.
From this perspective, Hamas was unsuccessful in drawing in its allies to the fight. While Israel did subsequently fight a separate war with Hezbollah, the conflict was itself brief and dominated by Israeli operational and strategic victories. However for residents of northern Israel, as rockets screamed overhead and air raid sirens wailed across northern Israel, life along the Lebanese border became a haunting mirror of the crisis playing out in the south. In towns like Kiryat Shmona, Metula, and Shtula, residents have faced not only the psychological burden of constant alerts but also the physical destruction wrought by Hezbollah’s escalating missile attacks. Though the war in Gaza has largely dominated global headlines, the northern front has become a second battleground—an extension of the conflict that has fractured Israel's sense of internal security and displacing tens of thousands of civilians. From burned-out buildings to shuttered schools and ghost towns emptied by evacuations, the scale of disruption in the north reveals a hidden cost of the broader war.
The war in Gaza sparked a dangerous and destabilizing parallel conflict on Israel’s northern border, where Hezbollah, backed by Iran and operating with rhetorical and logistical coordination with Hamas, had mounted a sustained campaign of rocket, drone, and missile attacks. In doing so, Hezbollah not only threatened Israeli military assets but also inflicted severe hardship on civilian communities. In examining the military dimension of this threat, the human toll on northern populations, the destruction of property and infrastructure, and the ceasefire that ended the most recent Israel, Hezbollah confrontation, it highlights a critical but underreported front of the war-one with regional implications and enduring consequences for Israeli security.
Since the outbreak of the conflict, Hezbollah has actively opened a northern front against Israel, transforming what began as a localized conflict into a broader regional confrontation. Within a day of the October 7 Hamas attacks, Hezbollah launched a series of rocket and missile barrages from southern Lebanon targeting Israeli communities along the border. The Lebanese militia deployed an array of weaponry including rockets, anti-tank guided missiles, and armed drones, testing Israeli air defense systems and forcing as many as 60,000 to flee their homes. Though many of the attacks appear designed to harass and distract, the scope and frequency of the firepower suggest a coordinated effort to overstretch the Israeli military and draw attention to Hezbollah’s continued relevance as part of the so-called “Axis of Resistance” aligned with Iran.
The group had largely avoided direct territorial incursions but had ramped up its cross-border fire, possibly as a show of solidarity with Hamas or as part of a broader Iranian-led effort to pressure Israel on multiple fronts. These actions prompted forceful responses from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), including airstrikes on southern Lebanon and targeted killings of senior Hezbollah operatives. Yet despite the violence, Hezbollah maintained a certain level of calculated restraint, engaging in limited actions rather than a major offensive. One explanation for this pattern might suggest that its involvement is mostly symbolic, designed to assert its independence while avoiding the political and military costs of a full-blown war.
Hezbollah’s rocket and missile attacks, launched in “solidarity” with Hamas, created an environment of constant fear for residents in cities and towns across the north of Israel. As barrages became more frequent and destructive, the human cost began to mount. Dozens of Israeli civilians have been killed or wounded in cross-border attacks. For residents, the violence has become not just a strategic threat but an intimate, personal terror—felt in every siren, every thud of impact, and every night spent in bomb shelters. Beyond the physical toll, the psychological damage is more difficult to measure but equally severe. The persistent threat of missile attacks has left many residents with symptoms of anxiety, insomnia, and post-traumatic stress, particularly among children and the elderly. Mental health services in northern towns have been overwhelmed as families grapple with the emotional strain of prolonged exposure to conflict. Parents report difficulty calming their children, while schools struggle to maintain any sense of routine amid closures and emergency drills. For those who have experienced conflict in previous wars such as the 2006 Lebanon War, this round of violence has reopened old wounds and triggered new trauma, amplifying the perception that their communities are living in a state of chronic vulnerability.
The Israeli government’s response to the danger involved large-scale evacuations of border towns, displacing tens of thousands of residents. Evacuees from towns within miles of the Lebanese border had been relocated to hotels and temporary shelters across the country. While these relocations have prevented additional casualties, they have also fractured communities and placed enormous logistical and financial burdens on both the government and the displaced. Families have been separated, businesses shuttered, and entire local economies halted. For evacuees, uncertainty looms large: How long will they be gone? Will their homes be intact when they return? And can normal life resume if the ceasefire does not hold?
Despite the hardships, many residents have shown resilience, with mutual aid networks and local volunteer groups stepping in to support those displaced. Still, the mood in the north remains somber and tense. Among those who remain, there is a widespread feeling of abandonment, a belief that the suffering of the north is being overshadowed by the war in Gaza. While media attention and international focus have concentrated on southern Israel and Gaza, the people of the north—caught between political maneuvering and military escalation—feel they are bearing a quiet, underreported share of this war’s cost. Their trauma, though less visible, is no less real.
The northern regions of Israel, once quiet and agriculturally rich, have endured significant damage to property and public infrastructure as a result of Hezbollah’s sustained rocket and missile attacks. Homes and property across the area have been struck by direct fire, leaving behind scorched ruins, shattered windows, and cratered roads. Schools and community centers have also been damaged, some beyond repair, forcing a suspension of public services and education in affected zones. According to early estimates by local authorities, hundreds of buildings have suffered varying degrees of destruction, creating a landscape of abandonment and decay in areas once marked by stability and growth.
Smoke rises due to a fire in the forest area between Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem on Wednesday/Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu/Getty Images
Beyond residential damage, the attacks have deeply wounded the local economy, particularly in agricultural and small business sectors amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. Northern Israel is home to numerous farms and vineyards, many of which have been forced to shut down due to missile fire and evacuations. Fields lie untended, crops have spoiled, and livestock have been lost or relocated. Similarly, the region’s tourism industry, especially popular for scenic retreats and historical sites, has ground to a halt. Business owners report mounting financial losses and a lack of clear timelines for return or recovery, with insurance payouts delayed and government compensation programs slow to materialize.
Some displaced residents returning to their homes have found them in states of disrepair, with little clarity on whether they’ll receive assistance in time for winter. Contractors and local authorities are stretched thin, trying to assess damage while also preparing for the possibility of renewed conflict. For many in the north, the damage to infrastructure is not just physical but symbolic—a reminder of how vulnerable they remain to regional tensions that can erupt at any moment.
Iran plays a central role in the broader escalation that has linked the Gaza conflict to Israel’s northern front. As the chief patron of both Hamas and Hezbollah, Tehran has long invested in a coordinated Axis of Resistance strategy that seeks to encircle Israel through proxy forces. This strategy came into sharper relief during the current Gaza war, as Hezbollah launched thousands of rockets and missiles from Lebanon while Iranian-backed groups in Syria and Iraq made threats or attempted strikes. Intelligence reports and statements from Israeli defense officials suggest that Iran not only encouraged Hezbollah’s involvement but also supplied advanced weaponry and logistical support in anticipation of a prolonged, multi-front confrontation. While Tehran seeks to maintains plausible deniability, its fingerprints are widely seen across the arc of attacks stretching from Gaza to Israel’s northern border.
Hamas, too, has made efforts to turn the northern front into an additional pressure point. Though primarily based in Gaza, Hamas maintains cells in southern Lebanon, some of which have reportedly attempted independent rocket attacks on northern Israel. These operations, though often less sophisticated than Hezbollah’s, reflect the group's aim to stretch Israeli defenses and amplify the sense of siege. The convergence of Hezbollah’s disciplined military capabilities with Hamas’s ideological fervor and Iranian strategic backing underscores a regional alignment that poses a unique challenge to Israel’s security establishment. The attacks from Lebanon are not isolated incidents—they are part of a wider effort to establish a persistent threat posture that forces Israel to defend on multiple fronts and raises the specter of a larger, more devastating conflict.
What began as a series of daily exchanges quickly evolved into sustained military engagements between the IDF and Hezbollah units operating near the border. The IDF responded with targeted airstrikes and artillery barrages aimed at Hezbollah infrastructure, command posts, and suspected launch sites. These operations, while designed to suppress further attacks, also risked expanding the conflict into a full-blown northern war—one that many Israeli officials feared could be more destructive than the campaign in Gaza due to Hezbollah’s more advanced weapons and deeper entrenchment.
Among northern Israeli residents, the ceasefire reached in November between Israel and Hezbollah had been greeted with both relief and deep skepticism. Many displaced families have expressed hesitation about returning to their homes, citing fears that Hezbollah’s arsenals remain intact and ready to be deployed again at short notice. The government, meanwhile, faces increasing pressure to strengthen northern defenses and ensure that civilians are not caught off guard in the event of another flare-up. For now, the border remains tense but quiet—yet the scars left by the latest round of violence, both physical and psychological, suggest that peace in the north is as fragile as ever, and likely contingent on broader regional dynamics still in flux.
This apartment building bears scars from a wartime strike on the road in
front of the building. (Uriel Heilman/ JTA)
The war in Gaza may have dominated global headlines, but its reverberations have been deeply felt far from the southern border. Northern Israeli communities, long accustomed to a fragile calm with Hezbollah across the border, have found themselves thrust back into a state of siege. With homes damaged, thousands displaced, and the sound of air raid sirens returning to daily life, the sense of unease persists even as a ceasefire with Hezbollah appears to take hold. Yet for many residents of towns like Metula, Shlomi, and Kiryat Shmona, the physical and psychological scars left by weeks of conflict will not be easily healed. Beyond the broken glass and charred hillsides, there is a pervasive sense that the northern front is no longer a dormant threat—it has reawakened with intensity.
While the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has brought a degree of quiet, it is a quiet laced with dread. The war’s expansion to the north laid bare how interconnected the theaters of conflict truly are, and many fear that the lull is merely a pause before a broader confrontation. Northern residents now face the difficult question of whether it is safe to return home or if they must prepare for another round of hostilities. The challenge for Israeli leaders is not only rebuilding damaged homes but also restoring a sense of long-term security in a region that increasingly feels like a buffer zone in a larger regional war. For now, the war in Gaza may be slowing, but for those in Israel’s north, the memory and the threat remain starkly alive.