JEWISH WORLD

24 JEWISH WORLD • JUNE 14-20, 2024 The ]erdant, Xuiet hills belie the war that has taken the li]es of doaens of people in northern Israel since 6ctober . continued from page 12 Israel’s 5orth A rusting tank on a hill in the Golan Heights overlooking Syria is a vestige of an earlier war. The area last saw serious fighting during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. (Uriel Heilman) verdant hills belie the war that has taken the lives of about two dozen people in northern Israel since the outbreak of hostilities last October. More than 350 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, most of them Hezbollah members, accord- ing to the group. The area still bears the hallmarks of one of Israel’s most popular va- cation destinations. Roadside signs advertise river kayaking, torchlight tours of the Nimrod fortress near the Syrian border, a cable car ride up the Manara Cliff. There’s no as- terisk indicating they’re all closed, or explaining that dozens of homes in Kibbutz Manara, an Israeli com- munity of 280 right along the Leba- nese border, have been destroyed by Hezbollah fire. I hadn’t intended to drive all the way into Kiryat Shmona. But I encounter no army checkpoint be- fore I reach the city, and in the car beside me I spot an elderly woman behind the wheel, looking unfazed. Well, damn. If she can do it, so can I. I manage to do a few interviews during my brief visit to Kiryat Shmona, but I’m interrupted by two sirens warning of incoming rocket fire. Locals rush me to shelter in the kitchen of the only shawarma restaurant still open in the city. Before leaving town I pull up the map on my phone to find the best route out. It shows my location as the Beirut airport. I try again. This time I’m in Cairo. I later learn that the Israeli authorities regularly scramble GPS signals in the conflict zone so as not to provide rock- et-armed enemies with information about the whereabouts of Israeli ci- vilians. I had arrived on a day that GPS signals in the entire country were scrambled following an attack on the Iranian embassy in Damas- cus, for which Israel was anticipat- ing reprisals by Iran or its proxies in Lebanon. As I race eastward across the fin- ger of the Galilee on a road lined with eucalyptus trees, I realize the trees serve a function I never before considered: They not only provide welcome shade but also block a di- rect line of sight for Hezbollah. I later learn that was by design. It takes just a few minutes to cross the Galilee here, and soon I again head northward. But a few miles lat- er I encounter my first army check- point: Points north are dangerous for civilians. I turn into Kfar Szold, the north- ernmost community in the Galilee not under mandatory evacuation or- ders. The soldiers at the kibbutz gate wave me through, and I park in front of a guesthouse where my two older kids and I stayed a couple of years earlier on a ski trip to Mount Her- mon, about 45 minutes away. The rooms are all shuttered and the din- ing room is empty. The flowers that line the kibbutz pathways dazzle in a springtime bloom of yellow and purple. I can hear the faint buzz of a tractor. From the kibbutz I continue far- ther east, climbing to the plateau of the Golan Heights — territory Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed. This is one of the most beautiful places in Israel, and it’s looking its best: The hills are still mostly green after the winter rainy season, even though it’s already over 85 degrees. In a few weeks they’ll turn dry and desiccated, yel- lowed out until next winter’s rains. Although it’s still claimed by Syr- ia, the Golan hasn’t seen real com- bat since the 1973 Yom Kippur war, when the area was the site of fierce tank battles between Syrian and Is- raeli forces. But the growing region- al conflict that began on Oct. 7 has renewed concerns in the Golan that have been dormant for years. I no- tice newly erected berms with bun- kers on the side of some roads — positions for the army to hold should there be an invasion of the territory. After Hamas’s surprise attack and the subsequent opening of the north- ern front by Hezbollah, that other- wise far-fetched scenario no longer can be ignored. Over the last seven months of war, Hezbollah rocket at- tacks have reached many areas in the Golan, there have been a few drone infiltrations of the Golan from militants in Syria, and in mid-April Iran targeted sites in the Golan with its barrage of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones . W ith the sun sinking, I look for a place to do a short stand-up video to post on social media. I find an old, rusting tank left over from one of the wars and set up my shot. But late-afternoon swarms of gnats foil my plans, and all I’m left with is an expletive-laden video selfie where I stumble through the high grass swatting in vain at my minis- cule antagonists. It’s time to find a place to sleep. I know the Golan well enough to have favorite hotels here, but in commu- nity after community I find them all closed. My phone shows Airbnbs available nearby, but there’s no indi- cation of whether they’re equipped with bomb shelters. Sitting on the side of the road out- side one of the Golan’s kibbutzim, I work my phone to reserve a room at a hotel near the Sea of Galilee — far from where I want to be the next day but safely beyond the conflict zone. It’s almost dark now, but there’s enough light to make out a dozen or more tanks parked in the trees across the road. When I finally arrive at my hotel, I’m surprised to find the parking lot full — until I reach the lobby and discover that almost all the guests are evacuees from one of the border communities up north. As I ap- proach the reception desk the clerk looks up at me and says, “I know who you are! You’re the one who booked us on Expedia. Now I have to see if we have a clean room.” He leaves me to wait in the lobby for a very long time. In the mean- time, I go up to the dining room, where there are only 20 minutes left before the buffet dinner closes. I end up spending a long evening chat- ting with a group of seniors from an evacuated kibbutz who have been living at the hotel for more than five months. They seem to be in good spirits. When they see me the next morning at breakfast, they greet me warmly by name. It’s nearly noon before I find my way to the hotel exit, to head back to the Golan Heights for a day of reporting in Druze and Israeli vil- lages near the nexus of the Israeli, Syrian and Lebanese borders. Along the way, I bump into some more elderly ladies on their way out of an exercise class and then some kindergarteners at their makeshift school. They’ve taken over the bug- gy of an Arab hotel employee set- ting up for the season’s opening of the outdoor swimming pool, and their teacher is trying to coax them out. The pool man is laughing. At the time of my visit Passover was fast approaching and the hotel was expecting to be sold out, but a big chunk of guests were to be the evacuees who’ve been living there for months. When I ask one of them if she thinks she’ll still be in the hotel for the fall Jewish holidays, a sad smile spreads across her face. She shrugs. “We don’t know anything,” she says. “I try to do the best that I can within this situation.” Uriel Heilman is an award-win- ning journalist who rites about Is- rael and the Middle East, U.S. Jew- ry and the Jewish World