Israel says it is ready to start a new war

According to my phone, I am at Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut. Except I am not. The Israeli Defense Forces have jammed the GPS of anyone within an hour’s drive of the Israeli-Lebanese border. The same navigation system that tells my iPhone its location is the same navigation system that Hezbollah might use to identify targets in northern Israel. They have been firing across the border since October 7, and the Israelis have had enough. They have evacuated 80 kibbutzim, nine villages, three community centers and two Arab villages. The term ministers use to describe the displaced is “refugees in their own land.” The Gaza offensive is coming to an end, and after that, one official says, “we will be ready to take care of Lebanon.”

This week the British embassy advised people to leave Lebanon if they could. Officials sound resigned, prepared, perhaps impatient for the northern front: “We’re talking weeks, maybe days.” I don’t know how to take them literally. The further north you go, the quieter it gets and the cars start coming the other way. The evacuated areas, amid vineyards and fields of bananas and avocados, are now known as “ghost towns.” In the fields, in the 32C heat, I can hear only one thing: crickets.

Hezbollah has launched more than 10,000 rockets in the past nine months, and Iron Dome has had no trouble intercepting them. Anti-tank missiles are harder to stop. The sirens can go off at any moment. I am with a group of journalists from the Europe-Israel Press Association. We are told to get off the bus, lie down and cover our heads if the sirens go off. On the way to Matzuva, a kibbutz right on the border, the Israeli army suggests we change destination and go somewhere else. It doesn’t matter that I am not a soldier: “When Hezbollah sees people, they shoot at them.”

Hezbollah is a more sophisticated enemy than Hamas: it has closer ties to Iran, a huge arsenal of rockets, about 25,000 fighters and 30,000 reservists. But Israeli officials insist they are not afraid. “I sleep like a baby,” says a bespectacled IDF lieutenant colonel, who spends his days gazing at the Lebanese mountains a few miles away. If Israel has to turn north, “what happened in Gaza will be child’s play.”

In the sleepy town of Mateh Asher, a 15-minute drive from the border, Ishay Efroni never lets go of his massive gun. He is the head of security for the regional council. “He looks scary but he is adorable,” the mayor says with a laugh. But Efroni is not laughing or smiling. The situation is intolerable, he says, especially for the children. “They had Covid for two years, and another year without school because of Hezbollah.” If they don’t return by September 1, they will miss another year, he adds. In two weeks, Mateh Asher will hold a raft-building competition for some of the children who stayed behind. “They need to feel that life is somehow normal.”

Israel is prepared to strike deep into Lebanese territory if Hezbollah does not stop its attacks. “If a rocket hits Haifa (a city in northern Israel), then something will happen to Beirut,” one official says. “I won’t say they’ll go back to the Stone Age, but there will be a big electricity problem.” The threat also goes the other way. Israeli research recently concluded that the Iron Dome could be overwhelmed by Hezbollah’s arsenal, and a government electricity official said Israel would become “unlivable” if the power went out. But fear of Hezbollah’s arsenal does not seem to scare Israeli officials. Zohar Palti, former head of the Mossad intelligence directorate, admits that Hezbollah could hit some high-rise buildings in Tel Aviv. “But you expect us to be paralyzed?” “, he asks.

The next day, we visit Kibbutz Nir Oz. A quarter of its residents were killed or kidnapped on October 7. A woman, Irit Lahav, greets us. She spent more than seven hours hiding in her safe room that day, saying goodbye to her daughter. Her makeshift lock worked, and she still lives here. We climb over broken windows and enter houses blackened by heat bombs. They stink. We are a two-minute drive from Gaza, and every minute or so we hear the terrifying, throbbing sound of Israeli cannon fire. The amount of agony crammed into these few square kilometers is enormous.

Theresa May once said that there were “girls’ jobs” and “boys’ jobs”. Not so in Israel. Most of the IDF soldiers I meet are young women with American accents. One is fascinated that I’m from London. She’s been there several times: “I want to go back!” I try to convince her that her life is slightly more interesting than mine at the moment. She has family in the UK, but she grew up in Israel and was drafted into the Israeli army last year. She’s only 18. She’ll serve for a bit, but once the war is over, she wants to open a restaurant. “I really hate war,” she says. “But sometimes the only way to achieve peace is through force.”

On Tel Aviv’s beach, crowds of soccer fans gather to watch the Italy-Croatia game on a big projection screen. I fall asleep to the sound of beach volleyball players and wake up to the sound of beach volleyball players. Most of the Israelis I talk to are sleeping well. No one seems ready for the war everyone expects. But they insist they are.