At the time being considered a truce of several weeks in the war against Hamas in the Gaza Stripnorthern Israel is preparing for heightened tensions with a much more powerful adversary: ​​the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.

After Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7 and the outbreak of war in Gaza, exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian movement, have increased on the border.

The Lebanese Shiite movement has a real army and a large arsenal, of which it has so far used only a fraction, according to experts.

On Monday, for the first time in years, Israel targeted Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold about 100 kilometers from the border. The Lebanese movement responded by firing dozens of rockets at northern Israel.

These exchanges of fire did not stop Arie and Dija Alon, an Israeli couple in their 30s, from hiking about ten kilometers from the border, at the foot of Mount Hermon, in the occupied Golan.

“Do we want a war in the north? It’s a very big question” and “we think about it constantly”, emphasizes Ditza.

Ready to go

“On the one hand, if there is no war, what happened in Gaza can happen here as well. But on the other hand, if there is a war, it will not be small and many soldiers and civilians will be killed,” he explains.

In Lebanon, more than 280 people — mostly Hezbollah fighters and its allies, but also 44 civilians — have been killed since October, according to an AFP tally. On the Israeli side, ten soldiers and six civilians have been killed.

Tens of thousands of residents from both sides of the border have left their homes.

Dija says she is preparing to leave because “once (the war) in Gaza is over (…) there will be a lot more noise in the north”, but at the same time she “hopes” that the situation will remain calm.

Her husband Aryeh believes that a war against Hezbollah is only a matter of time and feels that it is necessary.

“It will happen because Hezbollah is like Hamas. They are like brothers. If Hezbollah does not retreat north of the Litani (a river in southern Lebanon, which delimits part of the country’s border), what happened in Gaza will happen here. Maybe not tomorrow, but in five or ten years. So we have to be ready,” he adds.

A ceasefire in Gaza will not change Israel’s “goal” of pushing Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallad assured this week during a visit to northern Israel, stressing that the Israeli military has increased “the strength of his fire” at the border.

“We will continue the strikes regardless of what happens in the south and until we achieve our goal” of pushing Hezbollah back from the border, he added.

Risk of surprise attack

For Amir Avivi, a former corporal in the Israeli army, a cease-fire in Gaza will not change anything: “Hezbollah may respect the cease-fire, but we will not respect the cease-fire as far as it is concerned.”

Israel’s government has reiterated that even if there is a cease-fire agreement, after it expires, it will carry out a ground operation in Rafah with the aim of “total victory” over Hamas.

“The big question will be: what do we do now in the north? Israel wants a diplomatic solution to get Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon, because without a solution, war is imminent,” Avivi notes.

At risk, according to him, if the talks reach an impasse, at some point Hezbollah will consider war inevitable and “try to surprise the Israeli army.”

Dija is preparing for any eventuality: “We hope every day that everything will be calm, but we are also ready to leave tomorrow morning if we are told to do so.”