‘Hezbollah are better soldiers than Hamas – we could be next’: RICHARD PENDLEBURY reports from one of the most strategically vulnerable communities in Israel

Uria Goldman smiles wryly. “I know it sounds crazy,” he says, “but my wife will not return to the kibbutz unless we fight a war against Hezbollah.

“This situation must be resolved once and for all; not for six months or a year, but for fifty years, so that our children can live in peace.’

Until October 7, the 36-year-old father of three children sold kitchen appliances. His community, Kibbutz Ma’yaan Baruch, had more than 700 Israelis, who grew crops, raised livestock, and hosted city tourists who wanted to experience the outdoors.

Today the settlement is a cross between a ghost town and a besieged military camp. The yoga studio and daycare are closed, as is the Museum of Prehistoric Man. Barbed wire has been rolled out across lush lawns, sandbag shooting points have sprung up on street corners, and Mr. Goldman no longer bothers with sinks or washing machines.

Instead, he’s armed with an assault rifle and patrols the otherwise deserted, California-style neighborhoods in a golf cart. On the back of his T-shirt are the words ‘Volunteer Tactical Team’.

Under siege: Uria Goldman discusses the ‘situation’ in Kibbutz Ma’yaan Baruch with Mail journalist Richard Pendlebury yesterday

People stand by as civil protection workers search for victims and survivors in the rubble of a building hit by an Israeli bombardment on Tuesday in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip

Richard Pendlebury met Idit Stein, (pictured) the mother of a six-year-old boy, who explained why she and others had to leave Ma’yaan Baruch. She said: ‘Our house is close to the Lebanese border, just 500 meters, so it has become part of the situation’

This dystopian new “situation” – a word you hear repeatedly in Israel these days – is due to its location.

Located at the foot of the long-disputed Golan Heights, wedged into a finger of Galilee between the Lebanese and Syrian borders, Ma’yaan Baruch – founded in 1947 – is one of the most strategically vulnerable communities in the country.

When Hamas terrorists overran and massacred a number of kibbutzim near the Gaza Strip on October 7, residents here and in other northern border communities saw the writing on the wall. The pressing question was this: If the small and relatively unsophisticated Hamas group could wreak such bloody devastation, what could the more formidable, Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which sat on the other side of the kibbutz border fence, do? ?

Faced with this existential threat, only one solution could be chosen: immediate evacuation.

Today, apart from Mr. Goldman and the thirty strong local civilian militias or reservists mobilized into the army, the entire population of the kibbutz and several others in the surrounding Hula Valley live as refugees in hotels and resorts around the Sea of ​​Galilee. .

There I had met Idit Stein, the mother of a six-year-old boy, who explained why she and others had to leave Ma’yaan Baruch. “Our house is close to the Lebanese border, just 500 meters away, so it has become part of the situation,” she said.

Uria Goldman smiles wryly. “I know it sounds crazy,” he says, “but my wife will not return to the kibbutz unless we fight a war against Hezbollah.” Pictured: Citizen advocate Uria Goldman with Richard Pendlebury

Uria Goldman is armed with an assault rifle (pictured) and patrols the otherwise deserted California-style neighborhoods on a golf cart. The back of his T-shirt features the words ‘Volunteer Tactical Team’

Ma’ayan Baruch near the Lebanese border in northern Israel, which has been evacuated

‘When everything started, I felt very insecure. That Saturday my husband was drafted into the army and I was left alone in my house with my son. I thought: if the terrorists can go to Be’er (a kibbutz next to the Gaza Strip, where 110 residents were massacred by Hamas) and that is two kilometers from the border, then Hezbollah can certainly come here.

‘The next morning I took my son and drove to central Israel to my parents. Two days later, on October 10, (the government) evacuated our entire kibbutz here.” She says they only brought the clothes they were wearing. They are happy that they are safe, but there is also great uncertainty.

“We don’t know when and how we will return home,” she says. ‘Some of my friends wonder if they’ll ever want to go back home. How can you live without security, thinking someone will break into your house in the middle of the night and take your child?’

Hezbollah is said to possess an arsenal of 150,000 rockets with greater accuracy and power than those of Hamas. The country brought Israel to a standoff in 2006 after killing three Israeli soldiers in a cross-border attack. Since October 7, the group has limited itself to sporadic rocket, mortar and artillery fire on Israel. It has not yet committed to a sustained blitz or ground war to support Hamas.

Israel has reportedly killed more than 40 of its fighters. In anticipation of the worst, the border areas have been cleared of civilians.

Located at the foot of the long-disputed Golan Heights, wedged into a finger of Galilee between the Lebanese and Syrian borders, Ma’yaan Baruch (pictured) – founded in 1947 – is one of the most strategically vulnerable communities in the country

Mr. Goldman and his colleagues offer us coffee in a makeshift bunker at the entrance gate. The IDF has fortified the area, but the citizen soldiers are under no illusions about the threat they face. In the absence of the army, civilian militias bore the brunt of Hamas’ attack on October 7

As we talk, a warning comes over the radio. Mr. Goldman and his colleagues grab their weapons and put on their flak jackets. A drone can be heard above us. We are told that armed infiltrators have been spotted in the Shebaa Farms area, on the high ground that dominates the kibbutz. We have to leave and later learn that the infiltrators have been ‘neutralized’ by an Israeli drone

To reach Kibbutz Ma’yaan Baruch, we travel through the town of Kiryat Shmona, which is located a few kilometers from the Lebanese border. The 20,000 residents have been evacuated to the south.

Mr. Goldman and his colleagues offer us coffee in a makeshift bunker at the entrance gate. The IDF has fortified the area, but the citizen soldiers are under no illusions about the threat they face. In the absence of the army, civilian militias bore the brunt of Hamas’ attack on October 7. “We could be next,” Goldman says. “What happened in the south could happen here. We know that Hezbollah is better soldiers than Hamas and that they are only a few hundred meters away. But this is my home and I have to defend it.”

As we talk, a warning comes over the radio. Mr. Goldman and his colleagues grab their weapons and put on their flak jackets. A drone can be heard above us. We are told that armed infiltrators have been spotted in the Shebaa Farms area, on the high ground that dominates the kibbutz. We have to leave and later learn that the infiltrators have been ‘neutralized’ by an Israeli drone.

Gaza is burning in the south. In the north the war only smolders. But the idyll of the kibbutznik may be gone forever.