On a lush green hilltop on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, Carmela Keren Yakuti proudly shows off her home in Dovev, which she fled more than 16 months ago over fears of a Hezbollah attack.
“Now that everyone is back, it’s an amazing feeling,” said Yakuti, 40, standing on her freshly washed patio and breathing in the crisp country air.
“It’s great here. We have a beautiful moshav, a beautiful view,” she added. “It’s simply great to be back home.”
On October 8, 2023, a day after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel triggered war in Gaza, Lebanon’s Hezbollah declared its support for the Palestinian terror group and began firing rockets into northern Israel.
For their own protection, the Israeli military ordered Yakuti, her family, friends and neighbors to leave Dovev, and they were sent to live in a hotel in the city of Tiberias, further south.
In total, the hostilities with Iran-backed Hezbollah displaced around 60,000 residents of northern towns and villages, according to official data.
Half are yet to return home.
Builders renovate a house in Israel’s northern kibbutz of Hanita near the border with Lebanon on March 3, 2025 (Menahem KAHANA / AFP)
On the Lebanese side, more than one million people fled the south of the country, around 100,000 of whom are still displaced, according to the United Nations.
On November 27, 2024, after more than a year of hostilities, including two months of all-out war during which Israel sent ground troops into southern Lebanon, a truce agreement came into force.
Israeli authorities have said residents of northern border communities could return home from March 1.
Yakuti, who retrained as a beautician during the time she was displaced, said she immediately packed up her belongings, bid farewell to the “kind” hotel staff, and moved back into her two-story home.
From her living room and patio, she has a clear view of a Lebanese village that was emptied of its residents following evacuation calls issued by the Israeli army in September ahead of its ground offensive.
“I’m not afraid and not shaking. The army did its job and carried out its work,” the mother of three said, adding: “I’m at peace with my decision to return here, and I wouldn’t give up my home and my moshav even if the war continued.”
While many of Dovev’s residents were returning this week, the scene was not so joyous in other communities along Israel’s northern border.
Residents walk in the northern Israeli kibbutz of Hanita near the border with Lebanon on March 3, 2025, after Israel asked residents of the northern areas to start returning to their towns following a November 27 ceasefire agreement with Lebanon. (Menahem KAHANA / AFP)
In the kibbutz community of Hanita, Or Ben Barak estimated that only about 20 or 30 families out of around 300 had come back.
“At first, there was this kind of euphoria when they announced that we could return,” said Ben Barak, who counts his grandparents among the founders of the 97-year-old kibbutz.
“But now people are also seeing that the place isn’t quite ready for living yet.”
Ben Barak, 49, pointed out the multiple places where rockets and mortars had fallen, as well as the damage done by the heavy Israeli military vehicles, such as tanks, that passed through on their way into Lebanon.
Or Ben Barak poses for a picture in his house as residents return to their homes in Hanita, a kibbutz in northern Israel close to the border with Lebanon on March 3, 2025 (Menahem KAHANA / AFP)
Asked if he was concerned about security now that the war was seemingly over, Ben Barak said that what worried him more was “what will happen with the community. Who will come back, how they will come back, and how many will come back?”
“I believe that in Lebanon, the army fought very hard and did everything it needed to do, but the real question is how to maintain this quiet,” he said.
“That’s the challenge — how to guarantee a peaceful life for the next 20 to 30 years. That’s the challenge for the state, and that will also determine whether people stay here.”
Just down the hill from the still-abandoned streets of Hanita, the town of Shlomi appeared to be returning to life.
At Baleli Falafel, Yonatan Baleli stuffed pita with salad and tahini as a long line of hungry customers waited to blaring trance music.
“I feel much safer than before, but do I feel 100 percent safe? No,” said Ronit Fire, 54.
Yonatan Baleli, a vendor at a sandwich stand, prepares an order for clients in the northern town of Shlomi near the border with Lebanon on March 3, 2025 (Menahem KAHANA / AFP)
“It’s not pleasant to say this, but it feels like it’s just a matter of time,” she said, adding that she believed there would be another war in the future.
“The next time will come again at some point,” said Fire.
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