Moves at a Small Border Village Hike Israel-Hezbollah Tensions at a Time of Regional Jitters

The little village of Ghajar has been a sore point between Israel and Lebanon for years, split in two by the border between Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. But after a long period of calm, the dispute has begun to heat up again.
Israel has been building a wall around the half of the village in Lebanese territory, triggering condemnation from the Lebanese militant force Hezbollah, accusing Israel of moving to annex the site. A recent exchange of fire in the area raised alarm that the dispute could trigger violence, The Associated Press said.
The growing tensions over Ghajar add to the jitters along the Lebanese-Israeli border, where Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah fought a destructive 34-day war in the summer of 2006. The two sides have studiously avoided outright battle ever since, despite frequent flare-ups of tension -- but each constantly says a new conflict could erupt at any time.
The dispute over a small village in the green hills where Lebanon, Israel and Syria meet brings a new point of worry amid broader unrest. The West Bank has seen increased bloodshed the past week, with a major two-day offensive that Israel says targeted Palestinian fighters. Within Israel, moves by the hard-right government to overhaul the judicial system have sparked large anti-government protests.
“This is Lebanese land, not Israeli,” said Lebanese shepherd Ali Yassin Diab, pointing to the half of Ghajar being enclosed by the Israeli wall as he grazed his sheep and goats nearby. Members of the UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL watched from a distance. In the early 2000s, Yassin used to take his herds to drink at a pond there but has since been cut off.
The village’s division is an unusual byproduct of the decades of conflict between Israel and its neighbors.
Ghajar was once part of Syria but was captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war as part of Syria’s Golan Heights, which Israel occupied and later annexed, with little world recognition.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Ghajar’s population expanded north into nearby Lebanese territory, held by Israel in its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon. When Israel withdrew from Lebanon in May 2000, UN surveyors delineating temporary borders ruled that Ghajar’s northern part was in Lebanon, its southern part in the Golan, dividing it in two.
Six years later, Israeli troops moved into the northern part of Ghajar during the Israel-Hezbollah war. They have occupied it since and a fence was installed preventing people from entering it from Lebanon. Under the truce that ended the 2006 fighting, Israel agreed to withdraw from Ghajar, but it wanted to clinch an arrangement to keep Hezbollah from entering the village.
In a statement to the Associated Press on Friday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Israel recognizes the line dividing the village in 2000 but said that following the division, “Hezbollah established itself in the village” and attempted an abduction of an Israeli soldier.
Most of Ghajar’s around 3,000 residents hold Israeli nationality — some of them alongside Lebanese — and they largely identify as Syrians.
Last year, Israel started erecting a concrete wall around the northern part of the village. It also began encouraging Israeli tourism to the village. In its statement, the foreign ministry said that the wall “is on the same route as the fence that was in place before” around the village.
In apparent reply to the near finishing of the wall, Hezbollah set up two tents nearby, including one in the area of Chebaa Farms, which both Israel and Lebanon claim as its territory. It is not clear what is inside the tents.
Israel filed a complaint with the United Nations, claiming the tents were several dozen meters (yards) inside of Israeli territory. Hezbollah says the tents are in Lebanese territory.
On Monday, UNIFIL’s commander relayed an Israeli request to Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister and parliament speaker to remove the tent. They responded that Israel should withdraw its troops from the Lebanese part of Ghajar, according to Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bouhabib.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech Wednesday night that Israel cordoned off Ghajar before Hezbollah set up its tents.
“Over the past days, it became clear that they (Israel) have annexed it,” Nasrallah said. He added: “The land of Ghajar will not be left for Israel, and certainly not Chebaa Farms and Kfar Chouba,” another border area claimed by both countries.
A female resident of Ghajar, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, said the villagers consider themselves Syrian but their main concern “is to stay in Ghajar, in this village, living in peace and security. No matter under who rules.”
“There is a (border) line that was drawn by the United Nations. Why are they allowed to cross it while we as Lebanese citizens cannot?” Mohammed Rammal, the mayor of the nearby Lebanese border village of Oddeissi, said of Israel’s presence in Ghajar.
Last week, an anti-tank missile was fired from Lebanon near Ghajar, with some fragments landing in Lebanon and others inside Israeli territory. Israel fired shells on the outskirts of the nearby village of Kfar Chouba.
On Wednesday, an explosion elsewhere near the border slightly wounded at least three Hezbollah members. Nasrallah said the case is still under investigation. Late last month, Hezbollah said it shot down an Israel drone flying over a village in southern Lebanon.
On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Joe Biden’s special envoy for energy, Amos Hochstein, during which they discussed “regional issues,” according to the Israeli prime minister’s office.
Some Israeli media said Netanyahu and Hochstein, who helped last year broker a maritime border deal between Israel and Lebanon, discussed tensions along the border with Lebanon.
“We continue to monitor and engage with authorities in Lebanon and Israel on the issue of Ghajar,” UNIFIL spokeswoman Kandice Ardiel said. She added that UNIFIL has repeatedly called on Israel to stop its works north of the line and that Israel’s occupation of northern Ghajar violates the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war.
Israel considers Hezbollah its most serious immediate threat, estimating it has some 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel.
During a tour by an Associated Press team near Ghajar this week, more patrols by UN peacekeepers and the Lebanese army along the border were visible. Residents in nearby villages appeared defiant and going on with life as usual during the summer season, when many expatriates come to spend time with their families.
In Lebanese media, many analysts say neither side wants a new war. But Lebanese political analyst Faisal Abdul-Sater warned that the situation is very dangerous as Israel and Hezbollah are on alert.
“Whoever fires the first shot will bear the responsibility for the consequences,” he said.

The sheer scale of destruction from the deadliest war in Gaza's history has made the road to recovery difficult to imagine, especially for people who had already lost their homes during previous conflicts.

After an Israeli strike levelled his family home in Gaza City in 2014, 37-year-old Mohammed Abu Sharia made good on his pledge to return to the same plot within less than a year.

The process was not perfect: the grant they received paid for only two floors instead of the original four.

But they happily called it home until it came under aerial assault again last October, following Hamas's attack on southern Israel.

This time, the family could not flee in time and five people were killed, four of them children.

The rest remain displaced nearly a year later, scattered across Gaza and in neighboring Egypt.

"A person puts all his life's hard work into building a house, and suddenly it becomes a mirage," Abu Sharia told AFP.

"If the war stops, we will build again in the same place because we have nothing else."

With bombs still raining down on Gaza, many of the Palestinian territory's 2.4 million people will face the same challenge as Abu Sharia: how to summon the resources and energy necessary for another round of rebuilding.

"The pessimism is coming from bad experiences with reconstruction in the past, and the different scale of this current destruction," said Ghassan Khatib, a former planning minister.

That has not stopped people from trying to plan ahead.

Some focus on the immediate challenges of removing rubble and getting their children back in school after nearly a year of suspended classes.

Others dream of loftier projects: building a port, a Palestinian film industry, or even recruiting a globally competitive football team.

But with no ceasefire in sight, analysts say most long-term planning is premature.

"It's sort of like putting icing on a cake that's not yet fully baked," said Brian Katulis of the Middle East Institute in Washington.

It could take 80 years to rebuild some 79,000 destroyed homes, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to housing said in May.

A UN report in July said workers could need 15 years just to clear the rubble.

The slow responses to past Gaza wars in 2008-9, 2012, 2014 and 2021 give little reason for confidence that rebounding from this one will be any smoother, said Omar Shaban, founder of the Gaza-based think tank PalThink for Strategic Studies.

The Israeli blockade of Gaza, imposed after Hamas took control of the territory in 2007, remains firmly in place, sharply restricting access to building materials.

"People are fed up," Shaban said.

"They lost their faith even before the war."

Despite the hopelessness, Shaban is among those putting forward more imaginative strategies for Gaza's postwar future.

Earlier this year he published an article suggesting initial reconstruction work could focus on 10 neighborhoods -– one inside and one outside refugee camps in each of Gaza's five governorates.

The idea would be to ensure the benefits of reconstruction are seen across the besieged territory, he told AFP.

"I want to create hope. People need to realize that their suffering is going to end" even if not right away, he said.

"Otherwise they will become radical."

Hope is also a major theme of Palestine Emerging, an initiative that has suggested building a port on an artificial island made of war debris, a technical university for reconstruction, and a Gaza-West Bank transportation corridor.

Other proposals have included launching a tourism campaign, building a Palestinian film industry, and recruiting a football squad.

"Maybe when you look on some of these, you would think they are, you know, dreams or something," Palestine Emerging executive director Shireen Shelleh said from her office in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

"However, I believe if you don't dream then you cannot achieve anything. So even if some people might find it ambitious or whatever, in my opinion that's a good thing."

Khatib, the former planning minister, said it was not the time for such proposals.

"I think people should be more realistic," he said.

"The urgent aspects are medicine, food, shelter, schools."

Moves at a Small Border Village Hike Israel-Hezbollah Tensions at a Time of Regional Jitters