At 6.30 am on October 7, I began receiving hundreds of messages as Hamas began its invasion of Israel. We knew immediately that where we lived, nine kilometres from the Lebanese border, could soon be unsafe if Hezbollah joined in on the attack.

I immediately jumped out of bed and told my husband, ‘There’s a war, I’m going to prepare the shelter.’ I went to the kitchen and started tidying up the leftovers from yesterday’s holiday meal. My husband joined me and we filled bottles of water. I made sure the phone in the shelter worked, that there was a computer, charger, torches and that the iron shelter door could close. We removed any pictures or glassware that might break in case a rocket hit the house.

But as we found out more and more about what Hamas was doing, we realised that all this was not enough. If thousands of terrorists invaded, our house shelter would become a death-trap. In Gaza, the terrorists came prepared with tools to break through the iron doors of any shelters, or they burned houses to the ground with their residents still inside. We decided to brief our children that if they heard gunshots, it was better to run and escape through the window.

Eventually we decided to send our three children away from the north. We had no idea when war would break out here, but the link between the north and south was obvious to us. And as the details of the Gaza offensive became clearer, we saw that Hamas had adopted Hezbollah’s strategy. A video published by Hezbollah about a decade ago on its offensive plan to take over the Galilee showed exactly what Hamas did in the south: opening with massive rocket fire at Israel and then an invasion of thousands of fighters into Israeli cities and villages, while taking civilians hostages to be used as human shields.

Soon after the Gaza attack, various terrorist organisations began carrying out attacks on Israel’s northern border as well. Every day, rockets, mortars, anti-tank missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and infiltration attempts are launched from the Lebanese, and occasionally Syrian, border. The anti-tank strikes are a particular problem for people living here. Because they are precision missiles with a short-range distance, Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system is ineffective against them. Hezbollah launches these missiles at both Israeli military as well as civilian targets.

About two weeks into the war, the 60,000 residents here who live within five kilometres of the border were evacuated from their homes. At the same time, the IDF was widely deployed along the northern border. We see soldiers everywhere and the IDF has succeeded in thwarting some of Hezbollah’s anti-tank squads. But it hasn’t brought peace or normality. While the attacks from Lebanon continue on a daily basis, in my community the children haven’t gone to school for 40 days. There has been a tenfold increase in the number of applications for a personal weapons licence – something that is considered very unusual in Israeli society. The sound of gunfire from the border can be heard every day. In the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona homes have been hit directly. Fortunately, the people who lived there had gone to their shelters or evacuated from the town and were not injured.

One evening I burst into tears and said to my husband, ‘If they don’t deal with the threat from the north, who will protect us from the next massacre?’ What will happen when the IDF’s reservists are released from the army, and the American aircraft carriers return home?

October 7th is our nightmare – it is a mirror image of what may happen to us. Hezbollah is just as vicious as Hamas, and even more sophisticated.

There are no good outcomes here. If there is a full-scale war in the north, Hezbollah’s rockets and the IDF’s response will lead to destruction on both sides. And if there is a ground invasion of the Galilee region where we live, the fighting will endanger both soldiers and civilians.  In every family in Israeli there is at least one soldier now, since IDF recruited the reserves.

On the other hand, if Israel achieves a ceasefire and the evacuated citizens of the north return to their homes, without Hezbollah disarming, we will continue to sleep next to a monster. What guarantee do we have that Hezbollah will not rise yet again to commit another atrocity? I can’t sleep at night because of this. When I think about the mothers in southern Israel who were raped and burned or kidnapped while protecting their children, I can’t breathe. What will allow me to breathe again?