ISRAEL: HOSTILITIES MAY HAVE ENDED BUT FOR ISRAELI FARMING COMMUNITIES ON THE LEBANESE BORDER SCARS OF PAST 22 YEARS REMAIN

Record ID: 399139

  • Title: ISRAEL: HOSTILITIES MAY HAVE ENDED BUT FOR ISRAELI FARMING COMMUNITIES ON THE LEBANESE BORDER SCARS OF PAST 22 YEARS REMAIN
  • Date: 25th May 2000
  • Summary: ISRAELI-LEBANON BORDER, NORTHERN ISRAEL (RECENT) (REUTERS) 1. SLV SIGN OF BORDER WITH LEBANON. 0.07 KIRYAT SHMONA, NORTHERN ISRAEL (RECENT) (REUTERS) 2. PAN TOP VIEW OF TOWN 0.17 3. TV HOUSES (2 SHOTS) 0.24 UNIDENTIFIED LOCATION, NORTHERN ISRAEL (RECENT) (REUTERS) 4. SLV SIGN SAYING DANGER MINES. 0.27 KIBBUT
  • Embargoed: 9th June 2000 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS, NORTHERN ISRAEL
  • Country: Israel
  • Reuters ID: LVAEP6CNEYPXNIJ9LGDYT1ZNJI89
  • Story Text: The hostilities may have ended, but for Israeli farming communities on
    the Lebanese border, the scars of the past 22 years remain. Now these
    communities are having to look to the future and at new neighbours and to
    hope for peace.



    Israel's northern border communities, for years surrounded by intense
    military activity as Israel fought a long, ultimately unwinnable war in
    southern Lebanon, are worried.

    The border is now eerily quiet, the almost daily thunder of big guns now
    silent.

    A fifteen-kilometre (9-mile) buffer zone inside Lebanon used to seperate
    Israel from its enemies.

    But now Israel's most effective enemy, the Iranian-backed Hizbollah
    guerilla movement, is right next door. The enemy of the last 22 years is
    suddenly a neighbour.

    Following the Israeli military pullout that ended on Wednesday (May 24)
    morning, Hizbollah and their supporters have been visible all the way up to the
    border fence.

    Residents of communal farms, or kibbutzes, along the border, say they feel
    unsafe knowing the border is only metres from their homes.

    "(I'm) just afraid that the Hizbollah will come to the Kibbutz and kidnap
    (us)", said Osnat Yaron, a kindergarten teacher.

    Residents of the Misgav Am kibbutz remember an attack by Hizbollah
    guerillas in 1980 all too clearly. And they don't want it to happen again.

    But while many residents are thankful the Israeli military has pulled out
    of Lebanon, they don't have much faith in new border arrangements.

    Wednesday's pullout, six weeks ahead of schedule, left communities without
    the fortifications Prime Minister Ehud Barak promised to install when he
    pledged to end Israel's 22-year occupation.

    Hanan Rubinsky, a kibbutz resident on the border, said the military pulled
    out too quickly, leaving the area almost unprotected.

    "There is some kind of fence which is an ordinary fence but there is no
    real border", he said. "The withdrawal should happen but the way it happened
    and the historic situation that we came into scared the people very much".

    Workmen were hard at work using heavy equipment to move earth along the
    border on Friday (May 26).

    Without the buffer zone separating Israel from Hizbollah guerrillas, parents
    in northern Israel sent their children to school in armoured buses, a gift
    from Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.

    But while thankful for the protection, scholar Hanan Angoli said this wasn't
    the future he wanted.

    "We want to continue with our lives without seeing all the army around and
    feel(ing) like we are in a war all the time", he said.


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