‘We’re Not Whiners, We’re Living in War’: Northern Residents Speak Out About Life Under Fire
While most Israeli citizens have returned to a relative routine, residents along the northern border continue to face a complex security reality. In an interview with Mendy Grozman on Kan Heritage, Matan Dudian, a resident of Shlomi and a member of the “Lobby 1701” organization, described the sense of detachment residents feel from public discourse and from understanding of their situation. “People think we’re just complaining,” he said. “But we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of residents living under a constant threat of gunfire, explosive drones, infiltrations and daily anxiety.” According to him, one of the hardest feelings is the gap between the official definition of the situation as “routine” and the reality on the ground. “The children are in school, the businesses are open, but at the same time there are alerts, infiltration incidents and a constant sense of threat. People don’t understand how you can live like this.”
“A Night Without Sleep and Days of Anxiety” Dudian referred to recent infiltration incidents along the border and said they are undermining residents’ sense of security. “When there is a report of a terrorist who entered Israeli territory, a mother sitting at home knows her child is in kindergarten, and she cannot get to him. These are moments of real anxiety,” he said. “We go through nights without sleep and ask ourselves where those terrorists are and whether the threat has really been removed.”
He said that the fact that life supposedly continues as usual does not erase the distress. “If the children do not go to school, the parents will have to stay home and may lose their jobs. On the other hand, sending them to school under these threats does not feel natural either.”
Security Was Promised, and the Reality Is Different Dudian recalled that when evacuees returned to their homes, messages were conveyed saying that the threat from the north had been significantly reduced and that Hezbollah had been weakened. “We were told Hezbollah had been pushed back, that the threat had been removed and that it was safe to return,” he said. “We came back because we believed the IDF and the state. But the reality that has emerged since then is undermining that feeling.”
He said that nearly all of Shlomi’s residents returned home because they believed the security situation had changed fundamentally. “One hundred percent of Shlomi’s residents returned. That shows how much we believed what we were told.”
The Economic Crisis That Does Not End Beyond the security issue, Dudian warned of the ongoing economic damage to northern residents. He described the difficulties faced by business owners who were forced to reopen their businesses after the long evacuation period, only to face renewed security uncertainty and a decline in activity. “There are new businesses that opened out of belief in the north and in the development of the region, and today they are collapsing without compensation and without a safety net,” he said. “People came here to build lives and were left with debts.”
Returning home was not simple either. According to him, many houses stood empty for more than a year, and when residents returned they discovered damage to electrical systems, plumbing and household appliances.
“We Are Not Asking for Much, Only Security” At the end of his remarks, Dudian emphasized that northern residents are not asking for special treatment, only the basic right to live in safety. “We have a strong community, good people and a beautiful place to live,” he said. “We know how to build, develop and work. The only thing we are asking the state for is security.”
