A short time before the horrendous events of October, 7, 2023, and having already served 12 years in the Israel Internal Security Service (Shin Bet), Lior Bez decided to return to the mostly tranquil, rural life of his home community in the north of Israel, to work the family's agricultural lands andsuccessfulbed and breakfast business.
"After years of job related intensive pressure, I sought a quiet life here in Metula, the place where I grew up, in the moshava my Russian immigrant grandparents settled a century ago," explains the proud 3rd generation Metulaite, somewhat tongue in cheek as since the first barrage of Hezbollah rockets rained down on Israel's northernmost town in the winter of 2023, he was called up to serve in the local kitat konenut – rapid response counter terrorist unit – operating under the command of the IDF.
Metula residents had little choice but to evacuate their homes, many of which have since been extremely badly damaged and others totally destroyed by literally thousands of Hezbollah rockets, or by quickly-spreading fires caused by exploding missiles mainly in the north facing areas of Metula that are extremely close to the Israel-Lebanese border fence.
The compact, homely Bez family chalets are situated on a wooded hillside at the most northern point of Metula, offering an incredible, uninterrupted view over a large flat plain between this agriculture and tourist-based community and a string of mostly – until recently - Hezbollah stronghold Lebanese villages stretching across a swath of undulating hills on the far side with snowcapped mountains in the near distance behind them.
The remains of a few small concrete buildings are dotted along the valley floor where one can also see the remnants of a French-built airstrip, one that was at a later stage also used by the British during the Mandate period, then left derelict, ending up situated on the Lebanese side of the borders later agreed upon.
The orchards of Metula run up to and along the fence. A patrol road used by the UN also runs parallel to that fence on the Lebanese side and to the right, on a hill higher than most, a gigantic blue flag of the UN peacekeeping forces, atop an enormous mast, can be clearly seen in the near distance.
White jeeps of the United Nations, the letter UN clearly marked on their roofs and doors, patrolled this road before Israeli forces moved into Southern Lebanon to deal with the Hezbollah attacks. The local Metula residents nicknamed those frequent patrols as "sandwich patrols."
"We coined that name for them as usually there were 2 UN jeeps, one in the front and one at the rear, and between them vehicles of the Hezbollah who were busily transferring their men and weapons to a position they had over there," explains Lior, pointing to another prominent hill to our right.
"It is still too dangerous to be out in the open and work in our fields and orchards," says Lior, pointing down from the garden of a two-story home on the perimeter of Metula where we are standing, overlooking Israeli fields, the fence, border patrol road and one time military runway. From this vantage point, one could see that most of the buildings of the Lebanese have been either almost flattened or certainly badly damaged, except for a few villages that belonged to Christian populations.
"In the main, the Christians were strong enough to prevent Hezbollah from taking over their villages and turning their houses into weapons arsenals, their roofs into rocket launchers and so forth, so when the IDF went into Southern Lebanon they did not destroy them. Nevertheless the people were told to leave," explains Lior, who had visited some of those villages after the IDF took over the region.
"I can tell you, because I have seen it with my own eyes, that not only were those Hezbollah controlled villages full of weaponry but under each building there was a tunnel heading in our direction.
"Here in Israel, it is mandatory to build a safe room, but there it was mandatory to build a tunnel facing Israel," the 51-year-old sadly quips.
At the side of the badly damaged house where we are standing, clothes stiff as wooden boards still hang on a washing line but not one single item moves in the slight wind. They have been hanging there for almost a year and a half since the homeowners upped and left. Under the circumstances, understandably, they didn't take in their Lebanese border-facing washing off the line before departing.
The house, like many of the others along that side of Metula, is full of gaping holes where rockets exploded, and lines of holes created by shrapnel crisscross almost every outer wall of this and other nearby buildings, the majority of which also have gaping holes in their tiled roofs. Nearby a burned-out car seems welded to the road.
"When that car was hit, the driver was still inside and miraculously managed to escape with just a few scratches," explains Lior. Then he talks about his friend Omer Weinstein and four agricultural workers from Thailand who were killed last October when a Hezbollah rocket exploded amongst them as they worked side by side in an apple orchard.
That orchard is very close to the Weinstein family home that sits on a nearby bluff and where this writer stood, alongside Lior, looking down with a heavy heart at a number of Israeli flags erected amongst the young trees in the area where Omer and the Thai workers were struck down. This is a temporary memorial until quieter, less dangerous times, will allow another to be built.
Nearby is the badly damaged shell of what was once a large family home and Lior explains that one room in the whole house was saved as he and other members of the response team-cum fire-fighting service, battled that blaze following another Hezbollah missile hit.
"The family had evacuated elsewhere but we had to let them know that the house had been destroyed, except for the room of one son, who by the way just happens to be one of the few survivors of the Nova Music Festival Reim "death shelter."
