 last war with Hezbollah. There are serious concerns here about the group's intentions. I'll be speaking to a panel of experts about that in just a moment, but first this report from our Middle East correspondent Ariel Ossaram. What you see here are three flag poles, but only two flags. The Hezbollah flag on the left and the Palestinian flag on the right. This is in Lebanon, mind you. So where's the Lebanese flag? That's a great question. The chances of an escalation that could deteriorate into war are not low. Nasrallah is close to making a mistake that could plunge the region into a big war. He's close to making this mistake from Lebanon or Syria. Israeli defense officials have been sounding the alarm. Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, are preparing for war. Israel could miscalculate and make a mistake, which could lead to blowing up the whole region. Your miscalculation could be the reason leading to the big war in the region, which will lead you to the abyss, if not to your demise. Our troops are excellent. If Hezbollah makes a mistake and starts a war against Israel, we will strike Hezbollah with a heavy blow and send Lebanon back to the Stone Age. Driving along Israel's nearly 50-mile scenic border with Lebanon, one can visibly see how Hezbollah has been preparing for war. These observation posts, beyond their regular task of tracking and documenting Israeli movements along the border, also serve Hezbollah in its psychological warfare, saying we are here. This is a closed military territory belonging to Hezbollah, and there are now dozens of these zones in southern Lebanon. You won't see the Lebanese army enter these areas. Up until a year or two, posts like these were hidden from view. Within minutes into our conversation, we realize we're not alone. And here, suddenly a car has arrived. Who are they? They're filming us. They're filming us because we are filming the area. These are Hezbollah operatives, three operatives in civilian clothing. As you can clearly see, Hezbollah's observation posts work great. In recent years, Hezbollah has increased its presence along the border under the cover story of an environmental organization called Green Without Borders. Using the idea of planting trees, the organization is actually a front for the group's terror activity along the border to cover up its violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 to maintain peace on the Lebanese-Israeli border. And in the past year or so, we've seen that they've been joined by fighters from the Radwan unit. That's Hezbollah's elite command their units. Named after the late leader of Hezbollah's military wing, the main mission of the Radwan unit is to infiltrate into Israeli territory and conquer towns or bases in the Galilee. Last month, this unit of 2,500 fighters, which gained much experience in the fighting in Syria, conducted a military drill depicting a wide range of scenarios. The main one, bombing a hole through the security barrier and hundreds of fighters storming into Israel by foot and on ATVs. Hezbollah isn't deterred by Israel. If they decide to carry out an attack against Israel, if they believe at that moment it serves their interests, they will attack. And we've seen this very clearly in recent months. Back in July of last year, at the height of negotiations between Israel and Lebanon over a maritime border, Israel downed three Hezbollah drones headed towards the Karish offshore gas rig. In March, a Palestinian terrorist infiltrated the border from Lebanon and carried out a bombing attack near Megidon, the north, injuring one Israeli. All assessments point to Hezbollah for sending him. And in April, Hezbollah allowed Hamas to launch dozens of rockets at northern Israel, in the worst attack since 2006. Driving further along the border, we come across another Hezbollah post. This time, at least six operatives are visible. This, too, in violation of UN resolution 1701. Oh, it seems like a real party's going on. Yep, there's a party. But beyond the ground scenario, in the next war against Hezbollah, we will see capabilities and firepower that we have not seen before, not what we saw in 2006, or what we experienced from Hamas in Gaza. What scope are we talking about here? I'm talking about thousands of rockets a day on Israeli towns. And the ranges of these rockets and missiles cover pretty much the entire territory of Israel. In total, Hezbollah is believed to have in its arsenal over 250,000 projectiles aimed at Israeli towns and infrastructure. Add to that swarms of drones like those Iran is providing Russia and its war on Ukraine. This will pose a significant challenge to Israeli air defense systems that will manage to intercept the vast majority, but not all. So with all these threats that you illustrated, the rockets, drones, anti-ship missiles, their presence along the border, all these things that we do see moving forward and progressing over the past two years, as you described, where does this place us on the timeline of the next war? You see here a process of increasing audacity. They are becoming more daring along the border with their towers and their weapons. And you see it in their actions against Israel. So what's next? It seems like they are striving to start some kind of escalation that will lead to a war. So what are they waiting for? That's a good question. But I think that they are not waiting. It's already in effect. They reach the understanding that the time has come to open a conflict against Israel. The only question is when? So as you can hear, very real threats. Israel is taking those threats very seriously. We'll hear to discuss with me Dr. Jacques Neria. He's the former deputy head of assessment for Israeli military intelligence. Great to have you with us. Lieutenant Colonel Sariq Tzahavi is the founder and president of the Alma Research and Education Center. And to my left Brigadier General Ilan Lavi, former chief of staff for the IDF's Northern Command. So welcome to you all and thanks for being here. And Sariq Tzahavi, I'll start with you. How did we get to the point where a very well-funded, well-armed militia essentially is in control of the border with Israel? Simple. Nobody's stopping that. Hezbollah in the past year and a half is building positions everywhere on the border. We see the military operatives of Hezbollah, part of the commander brigades of Hezbollah that fought in Syria and came back over here. And actually it was kind of an evolution of the organization since 2006 until today that brought us to the situation today. General Lavi, is Israel ready for such an event? To say the word ready and to think that you are in a point that everyone is ready won't be too much wise to say. Israel is improving its readiness all the time. We just completed the last week a drill of two weeks in which all the IDF capabilities were executed during the training. But we must continue to improve our capabilities. And if I can divide it to two main issues, I divided it to the military readiness and the readiness of the population. Regarding the military readiness, I think that we are on the right way, although we have, as I said, still to do and to train ourselves regarding the readiness of the population, the on-front arena, there is much to do in order to prepare the population for the next one. We will talk about that in a bit more detail. Very quickly, Jacques Léviard, how do we get to this point? Well, as Sarit said, I mean, nothing was done since 2006. All Israeli government chose not to confront Hezbollah in Lebanon and chose to fight Hezbollah in Syria and Iraq and maybe sometimes in Iran. And the result is that Hezbollah had about 10,000 rockets in 2006. And today it's about 200,000. We've seen two weeks ago the parade, the military parade, the grand design, the grand circus about all the weapons that were presented there, all weapons came from Iran. And so nothing was done in order to stop them. And what was done was too little and too late. Jacques, hold that thought. We're going to take a very short break. And it does feel very real sitting here in somebody's home, just a few hundred meters from the border. We'll be back in a moment with more discussion. Stay with us. Organism that pulsates through millennia. Listen to it. Smell it. Taste it. Experience the Holy Land like never before. Holy Land uncovered every Sunday only on I-24 News. Sometimes it's tough to get past all the noise and get to the heart of the story. Even tougher to make sense of it all. I'm David Matlin, and each weekday I'll take on the most important topics, breaking down the issues so you can decide for yourself. Zoom in. Each weekday here at I-24 News. This week, in Malar at large, my guest will be Salome Zorabishvili, President of the Republic of Georgia. Nobody knows how it will end for Putin within Russia. But for him, the war is already over. Malar at large with Christian Malar this week on I-24 News. Welcome back. You're watching a special edition of Middle East Now. We're discussing the growing threat on Israel's northern border from the Shiite terrorist organization, Hezbollah. So just to pick up where we left off, Jacques Neria, is it a question of not if, but when Hezbollah launches some kind of offensive? Well, as far as we know, and maybe we don't know much, but the operative plan of Hezbollah was more or less known in 2011. The fact that Hezbollah did not act since it was because it's involvement in Syria. So right now I think that I'm much more better for the Syrian regime in Syria, and much of the units of Hezbollah has been brought back into Lebanon. So this is more or less the time to provoke Israel on new issues. And from the plan that was at the time thought of by Hezbollah, the thing is that they are thinking about launching an attack on three fronts along the border with Israel, three fronts with five brigades that were supposed to, the first one was supposed to take over Naria and then Karmiel in the center, and then of course around Kirachmone on the Eastern border. And of course, this would be preceded by heavy bombardment and the salvoes of rockets on Israel. So this is what we have to prepare. The stuff of nightmares really aside, why the theater, I mean, you're an expert on Hezbollah, why the theater, why this kind of highly stylized war game where the media was invited and they're showing off their capabilities and their weapons. I mean, if you're going to invade someone is perhaps not best to warn them first. What is the purpose? Who's the message for? The message is for the Lebanese. Simple as it's not for these realities. It's first and foremost for the Lebanese that everyone in Lebanon will understand who is the boss, who is the biggest bully in the neighborhood. And you know, this is a hand in hand at the same time with trying to take over different areas in Lebanon or create more influence in different areas in Lebanon that are not necessarily Shiite areas. So I think the parades and all these filmed demonstrations that we see of Hezbollah, they first speak in Arabic, then they speak in Hebrew, then they speak in English. Multilingual war games. General Lavi, did the IDF learn anything from that in terms of as well as weapons capabilities? IDF is detecting Hezbollah for many years. Okay. I don't think that such a drill is a drill that the IDF is learning things that he didn't know before. As I said, Hezbollah is doing those public drills in order to talk with his own population. We are looking at Hezbollah for many years. We know his capabilities, his strengths, but we know also how to deal with his weaknesses and how to act against them. Now, I suggest that we want to look at Hezbollah as a monster. The organization can take a strip inside Israel, a narrow strip, let's say they take over a community. So when they talk about invading Carmel and made towns and population centers, that's not in the scope of Hezbollah. It's not a maneuvering military. It's a force, a good force that was trained and that fought in Syria. And this force, especially there are one for us. We count something like 10 to 11 battalions, okay? Something like 250 soldiers in every battalion can maneuver, a limited maneuver on the border and to have here and there achievement. Those achievements meant to create a chaotic atmosphere in Israel. We must educate our population that not every success of the enemy, the mean of that is that we lost the game, okay? A war will be long and tough. Yes, the second issue of this limited maneuver is to avoid the IDF forces that are coming from the rear to advance towards the border. They want to delay us, okay? And to cause us casualties in order that we won't be able or we won't succeed to accomplish our plan to maneuver inside Lebanon. That's the second reason. But to talk about Carmel or other cities in the depths of Israel, I suggest that we put it on the right level. Okay, all right. Do you agree with that? And in terms of talking about Israel's reluctance to trigger some kind of conflict with Hezbollah, I mean, let's cast our minds back to what happened over the Passover holiday when there were some rocket attacks, not from Hezbollah but from Palestinian terrorist groups inside Lebanon. How would you rate Israel's response to that? What was the message sent by Israel back then? I can only judge by Hezbollah's reaction. They believe that Israel is weak. Every Israeli move is analyzed, biased by their mentality, the way they think. And they think that we are weak. And this is the reason why we don't react in force. I'll give you an example. When if you look on your left, you'll see the wall that divides, that protects Israel from Lebanon, from the terrorist, from the Israeli point of view, this is a defensive wall. This is meant to protect our population. From their point of view, this is a proof of weakness and so on and so on. So while they see that we are weak or they believe that they are weak, they just try to challenge us. And this is what Hezbollah is trying to do, certainly when Hasan Nasrallah himself, that his policy would be silence. He would not react about anything that happens on the border, even if we know for sure that Hezbollah is behind it. This is the way he's behaving right now. And provocation after provocation, he has a definite agenda. And the agenda, we can discuss it afterwards. Saeed, if I could come back to you then, would you agree with that? And one area or one field of operations perhaps where Israel has acted decisively against Hezbollah is of course in Syria. Has that had a sustained impact on the group's operations and its ability to transfer weapons? I think first and foremost it influenced the ability of Iran to transfer the weapons into Syria. The IDF published that it had about 70% success against the shipments from Iran and about 90% success of the manufacturing infrastructures in Syria. Hezbollah itself continues to train its own commando, Radoan forces to the scenario that Ilan spoke about. But I think it is very important to understand one thing that the Radoan companies that you all mentioned obligates. It's one scenario. The second scenario is the amount of rockets. And these are hidden inside the populated areas, making the Lebanese human shields. And that's the main challenge that we are going to face. How do you defend Israelis while Hezbollah is using the Lebanese as human shields? There seems to be a feeling, General Aviv, that successive Israeli governments have been kind of kicking the can down the road on this issue. They don't want to engage with Hezbollah for obvious reasons. Do you think they're just delaying the inevitable to a certain extent? We have to look at the reality and to understand. First of all Israel doesn't want to go to wars. Wars, although eventually you will win the war, you will pay high price. First of all, second, a normal state want to delay the war as much as it can in order, especially a state like Israel, in order to continue and to advance in our capabilities, not only our military capabilities. We want to flourish our economy. So wars create a situation that people do not like to invest in a country that is based on human capabilities. The second issue is the government would have to choose the right point and the right time to go to a war. I don't think that we are now still in this situation. And I want to add another main thing. We are near the border with Lebanon, but the next war won't be the third Lebanon war. And it won't be the first northern war. It will be the all arenas war. Our main enemy is Iran. Iran is conducting everything. Iran is willing to pay with the blood of its proxies, but Iran is conducting everything. So the next war, when it will break up, I hope that we will initiate our movements will be not only against Hezbollah. It will be against Hezbollah in Syria. It will be against proxy forces in Syria. It will be against rockets that will be launched from Iraq, from Yemen, from Gaza. And even in the internal situation in Israel, we will see riots. So we have to keep and continue to improve our capabilities because when the D-Day comes, it will be a very hard and tough war. I must say something in this regard. First, you mentioned that the rockets were launched by Hamas in Lebanon. The rockets in Passover were launched by Hamas in Lebanon. And these were intercepted above my home. I live 20 minutes from here. But I can tell you that it is clear to us, I think all of us, that 36 rockets from Lebanon, it's not without at least the knowledge and probably the assistance of Hezbollah. These rockets were launched from orchids, like orchids of olives of oranges. Palestinians are considered refugees in Lebanon. They don't own properties. So it is clear that these properties, Hezbollah has the hand in bringing Hamas to over there and enabling them to launch from over there. So when Arrow and Shield started in Gaza, we were not completely positive that the scenario that Ilan is talking about is not going to realize. We were here over here. I stopped the groups from coming to the border. I was not positive that Hezbollah will not join in. And actually, though Iran encouraged different parties to join in, it didn't happen. It didn't happen. The multi-front vision of Iran was not realized just a month ago in Shield and Arrow. And I think this is a little bit encouraging because it gives us a hope that maybe we can find a way to create more rifts between the different players. And each of them has different. I agree that all of them are proxies of Iran. But they also have their own interests in this. And they will not jump to defend some commanders of Palestinian Islamic jihad, for example. So we must, as Israelis, we must, or even international community, try to find a way to create more rifts between all these players. And you've written about this, how Hezbollah and Iran are waiting for kind of a perfect storm for everything to align before they launch an offensive. Yes. Well, I mean, I can only concur with what was said here earlier that Iran has a ground design to surround Israel with, to suffocate Israel around the, with its border from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, even the West Bank, Gaza, and Yemen. And this is what is the ultimate goal of Iran. The fact is, between saying and doing, there's a big difference. And then, you know, the difference is that what's happening on the ground. And certainly what we are doing in, what Israel is doing in Syria to prevent the flow of the, even though it's not enough, the flow of weapons coming into the, into Lebanon and hitting at sensitive, sensitive targets, they're making, hurting the Iranians and Hezbollah also. This, this delays, in my view, the confrontation between us and Hezbollah. Okay. I must say that when we speak about Children Arrow, Nasrallah was probably watching the IDF capabilities with regard to intelligence and the capability to kill commanders of the PIJ. They probably understood the message, what can happen over here as well. All right. And Lieutenant Colonel Sareen Tahavi and General Levy, thank you to you both. Ajak, they're going to be staying with us. We're taking a very short break. When we come back, we'll look more at the regional and international impact on all of this. Stay with us. Strictly security, your weekly look into security, intelligence and strategic affairs. Our team brings the latest on the major international conflict analysis of the major security issues right here in the Middle East and around the globe. Join us for a close look at innovative military technology and get up to speed with what's happening in cyberspace. Saturdays only on I-24 News. Discover I-24 News Radio. Now you can listen to I-24 News anywhere, anytime, for free. 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It's something that the Israeli army and government is taking very seriously indeed. Jacques Nariah is still here with me, former deputy head of assessment for Israeli military intelligence. And with us as well, our Jonathan Regev, our defence correspondent. Thanks for being with us, both of you. And we're going to talk a bit now about the regional developments and the impact on the tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. And Jacques, the obvious one that comes to mind is the US-brokered maritime border agreement between Israel and Hezbollah a little over a year ago under the previous government. That was supposed to bring down tensions. It doesn't appear to have had the desired effect. Well, as you say, it was supposed to bring down the tension between us and Lebanon, and certainly not between us and Lebanon and the state, but between us and Hezbollah. The fact is that we got finally to an agreement, which was, I mean, to the detriment of Hezbollah, to the detriment of Israel. And it was not a good agreement anyway for both sides. But the thing is that right now, the French total, the French company total, is beginning to drill. And if they find gas, we'll be happy because Hezbollah will be satisfied. But if we don't find, even if that means revenues, if they don't find gas there, then Hezbollah will say that he has been fooled by again by Israel and so on. And he has on his agenda three more three different files. The first file is the tunnel on the Roshan Ikhara, the border crossing between us and Lebanon. They say that they have 800 meters taken by Israel. And then there is the file of seven Shiite villages that were abandoned in 1948 that are around the border. And Hezbollah is claiming to get them back from Israel. And finally, we have the Shaba Farms, where the Hezbollah and the Lebanese say this is Lebanese soil. And we say no, this is definitely Syrian because we conquered that in 1967 from Syria. That's right, isn't it, Jonathan? I mean, Hezbollah have had these kind of long term stated goals when it comes to Israel about territory that they see as theirs and they want to take back. Yes. And stay just for the sake of conversation. There is some kind of an agreement on these Shiite villages, which we're mentioned here on the tunnel in Roshan Ikhara and the Shaba Farms. There's not going to be any, but let's say for the sake of conversation, there is. Well, that means that peace will arrive and Hezbollah will put down its weapons. The answer, of course, is no. Israel left Lebanon all the way until the blue line. This I'm not saying this. The United Nations stated this back in 2000. Israel left all the way until the blue line. Is there peace since 2000? Were there no kidnapping incidents on the border? Was there no war in 2006? All this happened. So I don't think that anything will appease Hezbollah. Eventually Hezbollah is a goal that is much bigger than the Shaba Farms or those villages here in the upper Galilee. That is something far bigger. And that's the extinction of the state of Israel. So you can appease them as much as you want. Would that bring peace to the region? The answer, unfortunately, is no. And of course, as our defence correspondent, you've spent a lot of time along the, I think, it's a 50-mile border between Israel and Lebanon. And there was an international agreement back in 2000 when Israel withdrew. There's a lot of concern about what Hezbollah is doing now on that border and how it's kind of concealing its activities. That's true. And let's remember it was in December of 2018 when Israel revealed those six tunnels at the time crossing from Lebanon into Israel, the biggest one just about a mile or so from the place where we are here in the village of Ezzarit. Do we know for sure that there are no other tunnels? The answer is no. They're based mostly on intelligence. But of course, Israel has fantastic intelligence on what is happening around with the neighbours Hezbollah included. But does that mean the Israeli intelligence is aware of every little piece of detail? The answer, of course, is no. So the concern is correct because there can be many, many other tunnels which we don't know about. We have to say that prior to 2018, people here in the area, including here in Ezzarit, they would say again and again, we're hearing sounds. Something is happening under the ground. And it seemed as if everyone was ignoring their call until one morning early in the morning in December 2018, suddenly came the news that Israel unveiled these tunnels. So work was obviously done not only on the Lebanese side, but on the Israeli side as well. Is the IDF aware of everything happening in Lebanon? I assume the answer is no. Jacques, talking about regional developments, I mean, we had the Iranian Foreign Minister recently in Beirut showing up his support for Hezbollah. There are two major developments recently. You've got the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. And you've also got the rehabilitation of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the Arab world. How is that having an impact on the situation? Well, definitely on a negative point of view. This is not what Israel would have hoped to see. I mean, we see that the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran is at the expense of Israel, certainly. So because Saudi Arabia will not be the part of the alliance that Israel was hoping to create around it, a Sunni alliance against the Shiite North, and certainly the welcome back to the Arab world of Syria doesn't add, I would say, vitamins to the Israeli regional relations. The thing is that we are on the Saudi issue. We are confronted with three actors, the United States, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia would like to normalize the relations with Israel if Israel would accept its peace plan, meaning going back to the 67 lines and creating a Palestinian state and so on and so on. The Americans would act to normalize if, of course, we would let them agree on a new agreement, a nuclear agreement with Iran. This puts Israel in a very difficult position. But the Saudis and the Israelis are on the same page, essentially, when it comes to Hezbollah. Well, on Hezbollah, yes. I mean, because Hezbollah is definitely acting against the Saudi interest inside Saudi Arabia in Yemen and in Iraq, we saw that Hezbollah had trained operators to fire attack drones on Saudi Arabia twice. And this was the job of Hezbollah. So, I mean, definitely Saudi Arabia is clashing with Hezbollah. And this is the reason that this is one of the core subjects to be discussed between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Jonathan, in talking about the international aspect, the Americans and the French are constantly trying to find some kind of solution for the Lebanese. Is the Israeli army somewhat held back by the efforts of the Americans and the French to stabilize Lebanon? I'm not sure, because, as you mentioned, the United States and especially France, which has a special relationship with Lebanon, they are trying to work things out with Lebanon. That is very nice. But the state of Lebanon is not controlling the state of Lebanon as crazy as it may sound. The state of Lebanon is a secondary player in Lebanon. The main actor is Hezbollah. Hezbollah is the strongest factor. It's stronger than the state itself. Therefore, you really want to negotiate with Lebanon? Go to the patrons. They're in Tehran. They're not in Beirut as good as important as the American and French efforts may be. And they are, eventually, you have to discuss with Hezbollah. And that means discussing with the Iranians. They're playing all the cards there. Jacques, do you agree with that? The French seem particularly hesitant about upsetting Hezbollah? Well, you know, the French have a very special role playing in Lebanon. Macron came to Lebanon after the port explosion and he promised funds to be sent to Lebanon, all the funds that were sent to Lebanon were never the discovered where they arrived to. And then France tried to impose a candidate as a president, the Slayman Fungi. Who is the candidate of Hezbollah? Well, the Christians in Lebanon said, no, we don't want Slayman Fungi because he's a pro-Syrian and pro-Hezbollah. We want the jihad as well. A Christian Maronite, who is a very talented economist. We want him to be the president. And this is going to happen on the 14th of June. Hopefully they will succeed in electing the president. My view is that we will go back to zero point again. All right, Jack, now, yeah, thank you very much. Indeed. We're going to take a very short break. When we're going to come back, we're going to talk a bit more about what all of this means for the people who actually live in these communities just a few hundred meters away from that very large threat from Hezbollah. Stay with us. We'll be back right after this short break. Each week, we're going to bring you the latest from the Jewish world, from politics to religion, entertainment to the latest trends and everything in between. Don't miss Jewish World Weekly only on I-24 News. Strictly security, your weekly look into security, intelligence and strategic affairs. Our team brings the latest on the major international conflicts, analysis of the major security issues right here in the Middle East and around the globe. Saturdays only on I-24 News. I-24 News team of talented correspondents are working hard for you during the markets on the streets in the battlefields, getting the pulse of the story and for beyond the headlines to see how the top stories of the week are affecting real people. No commentary, no debate, just the best stories presented by our best Germans. Joining us, you're watching a special edition of Middle East. Now we're on Israel's northern border in the tiny village of Zarid, just a few hundred meters from the border with Lebanon. And we're talking about the looming threat of war with the Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah, which is just a few hundred meters behind us. And the threat, of course, is felt most keenly by the ordinary people who live in the towns and the villages along the border with Lebanon. And our Jonathan Regov has been speaking to people in the town of Shlomi about preparations there. This is Shlomi in northern Israel. It's home to nearly 10,000 people. It's also the closest large community to any of Israel's borders. Some of the houses here lie just a quarter of a mile from the Lebanon border. It means Shlomi will be a sitting duck for Hezbollah's rockets in a future war, but as far as defensive solutions for the residents, there's still a lot to do. Our main issue at the moment is the shelters. About half of the houses in Shlomi, the ones that were built after 1992, they have a shelter in the house. The main problem is with the other half that do not have shelters inside the house, only communal shelters at the bottom of the building staircase. This is what it looks like. The same shelters used to protect the residents from PLO-Katusha rockets in the 70s are expected to shield residents from Hezbollah's modern missile arsenal. Elderly people live in this building, very old, who live in the third and fourth floor, people with physical or mental disabilities. They can't run to get to the shelter. Those living here understand they have to rely on something else to survive. We live in such close proximity to the border that you can hear the missile landing at the same time the sirens begin. My husband is disabled, he has no way to get to the shelter downstairs in time. By the time he has got there, many rockets will have landed. I will not leave my husband and run to the shelter when I know he is disabled and alone, cannot walk, certainly not in time to avoid getting hurt, so we stay home. It should be noted the community shelters are well kept. They're clean and air conditioned, there are toilets, running water and even beds. They were a good solution 30 or 40 years ago when tense periods would send the residents to the shelters for a few days, but the reality now is completely different. The worst scenario Israeli authorities are preparing for is approximately 30 to 45 days of fighting. These shelters are not suitable to shelter people for that length of time. A future conflict will not feature dozens of Katyusha rockets like in the past, but hundreds or even thousands of rockets fired every day. With an alert time of only five seconds, sometimes even less, the only way for people here to be relatively safe is for all the houses in Shlomi to have a protected shelter. There are roughly 1,000 homes lacking that shelter. Residents were promised many times this will happen. They're no longer expecting anything much. Whenever there is a new government, they always promise us shelters, budgets, and then the government changes and the budget goes somewhere else. By the time this government makes that promise, a new government will be in its place. Right behind me is Shlomi just above it, the Israel-Lebanon border. If and when a war erupts, thousands of rockets are expected to land on this community, with residents having practically no time to respond and many of them having no shelters in their homes. This means that all they will have to do is pray for the rockets, not to hit directly at them. Jonathan Regev, I-24 News. So as you heard, there are a pretty frightening situation for the people who live in these communities. And Jonathan Regev, our defense correspondent, he made that report and he's with us as well. And we're also joined by the former mayor of Kvav Radim, a nearby town, Sivan Yechieli. Welcome. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. And with us, well, Reenat Karmel, we're delighted to have you with us. Reenat has very kindly invited us to her home today. And she, as you can see, lives very, very close to the border as well. So Reenat, we'll be speaking to you in a moment. But Sivan Yechieli, we just saw that report about what's happening in Shlomi. Is it a similar situation in your town? Kvav Radim is not as close to the border as Shlomi. We differentiate between three layers, two kilometers, four kilometers and nine kilometers. These are the confrontation lines, as it's called. And Shlomi and Zarit, where we are here, is the two kilometers, which is at the highest risk, including a risk of invasion, a physical invasion of troops from Edoaduan, a force of Khizbala. And when you talk to people in your community, young people, old people, is this something that is, is something they're worried about? Are they concerned in their daily lives? I think that people don't realize. I think there's a dissonance between what's happening in the south. And, you know, there's a lot of, every time there's an event in the south, there's hundreds of missiles or thousands of missiles. And people assume that it's going to be quite similar here. And it's going to be very, very different. And I think that people don't appreciate that enough. And the result may be quite a shock when it happens. And I'm talking about this, especially about the two kilometers or four kilometers from the border where they're subject to rocket and mortar attacks. And they're subject also to very, very heavy missiles, which can break the security rooms or the shelters, the local home-made bomb shelters. And I think that when that happens, that may bring quite a bit of panic in the north of Israel. And I think that this is something that the government should take into consideration and work very strongly in preparing this region for the war. Renat, you were born here. You grew up here. Your father helped to found this community. I mean, its paradise is beautiful, but there is a looming threat. I mean, just talk us through, how does that affect your life? Okay, that's right. What you said is exactly right. And there is a dissonance between the feeling of a paradise, a true paradise. But I cannot say that in the back of my mind, I'm not thinking about it. There is a fear. The unknown is very unknown. And as Sivan said, we really don't know how to arrange ourselves to be ready for this countdown. And then it will be from zero to 100 in some minutes. I don't know. Maybe we don't have a minute to get into the room, the shelter. Yeah. So we live with that fear. But as you said, I grew up here. And I can say it is usual, but we have it in our mind. It's something you've learned to live with. Yes. Do you think you get enough support from the government, from the local authorities? As always, you can answer about this question. There must be more. We must have more, more confidence, more resources, more attention. We have some problems with the economical situation here, with the agriculture and other issues. We don't have bank or anything, no grocery, nothing. There's a lack of infrastructure, you feel? Right. Do you think this is something that the young people, the children talk about? Are they aware of that? Yes, as you can see behind me, there are some buildings here that the young generation started and thought we will live here near our parents, which are getting older. And there is no place, there is no work here around, is there it? So the economical situation is a great issue. And most of the young people, which didn't live here most of their lives, are afraid and they will not come. So we have empty houses. Yeah. Sivan, is that something that you agree with? Do you think people have put off coming to live here because of the threat? I think so. I think Renat gave a good answer in terms of there is a security threat, which is very present. And I think people are aware of it. And there's also an economical issue that is not being addressed by the government. The Israeli government, especially the current government, is not very interested in the periphery. They're busy with their own thing. And I think that that kind of shows in this region, especially. Do you think that it's worse now than it was, say, 10 years ago? Or is it approving? I think that it's getting worse. I think things are getting worse. I'll give you an example. Back in 1970, in 2017, I was the chairman of the Northern Confrontation Line of the cities here. And we decided to have that plan that was five billion shekels in order to fortify this region and prepare it for war. And it took us a while. But then the Defense Minister at the time was a liberal man, and he approved it. He resigned from the government, Bibi Netanyahu came into office. And the first thing he did was cancel that plan. Okay, so then it was reinstated, but much in a much shallow way and much less budget. And I think that that really shows where the priorities lie. Instead of investing in these regions and making them into the paradise, they could be actually kind of neglecting them. Both on the economical side and especially on the security side, which is so the political uncertainty has had a negative impact on on your region, the political uncertainty. And I think the cynicism of politics, you know, oh, yes, well, we see that everywhere. Jonathan, and just just to wrap up, then you reported you spoke to lots of people in these border communities. Is that something that you've been seeing as well? Yes, absolutely. People people are are concerned by this. I have to say that in communities, I sit in the north and I sit in the south, even with with all the security tension, if if there was work, if there were economic opportunities, and more infrastructure, and perhaps easier and faster way to get to to employment, employment centers further south high Tel Aviv area or so, people would come here despite everything that is happening. And this is true for the north. It is also true for the south. There are many times we constantly speak of the Gaza border, for example, the Gaza border communities are growing because there are in places, not everywhere, but there are economic opportunities. And they that means people come there. This can happen here, even with all this threat of his bala, people will come here. The security threat is putting people away. True. I think the economic effect together with that is even worse. There is a way to counteract that very interesting Jonathan, Renat and Sivan. Thank you very much to you all. And thanks to you for watching. That brings us to the end of this special edition of Middle East now from the border with Lebanon. Stay with us on I-24 News. Much more still to come.