KFAR YUVAL — A few minutes into a visit on Thursday to the home of Vicky Tiferet, a resident of this agricultural community on the northern border with Lebanon, there was a loud explosion about a mile away.

“Don’t worry, it’s outgoing,” Tiferet said casually.

While Tiferet was matter-of-fact, it was hard not to be unnerved.

Only a few dozen yards away was the house where Barak Ayalon, 45, and his mother Miri Ayalon, 76, lived until they were killed by a Hezbollah-fired anti-tank missile in January 2024.

Standing on the street, it’s easy to see that this pastoral farming community, set in the middle of green rolling valleys and hills, is a tourist destination in peaceful times.

However, on a hilltop ridge, just over a mile away, is the Lebanese village of Kafr Kila, a central Hezbollah hub from where a Radwan force planned to invade Israel.

It was from an observation point that Hezbollah operatives aimed at Kfar Yuval, killing Ayalon and his mother.

Ayalon was a staff sergeant in the reserves and a member of Kfar Yuval’s security team, headed by Tiferet’s husband, Oded.

After offering her guests coffee and water, Tiferet sat at the kitchen table with a telephone in one hand and a walkie-talkie in the other.

Nine years ago, Tiferet, a massage therapist, began volunteering at United Hatzalah. Today, she leads a team of 84 volunteers, both Jews and Arabs, in the Galilee Pandhandle. Tiferet sometimes leaves the house at the same time as her husband during emergencies.

“There’s a 50% chance one of us won’t come back,” she said. “The only thing that keeps us going is knowing we’re helping others.”

Two days earlier, she raced to Mahanaim Junction, about 15 miles to the south, where a Hezbollah rocket killed Nuriel Dubin, 27, from Margaliot in the Upper Galilee and wounded two others.

Tiferet’s stoicism in the face of danger seems typical of residents in the north, many of whom were among the 60,000 people evacuated soon after the Iranian-backed terror organization Hezbollah began firing on Israel on October 8, 2023, a day after fellow Iran-backed terror group Hamas invaded southern Israel, sparking the war in Gaza.

According to the IDF, Hezbollah has been firing an average of about 150 rockets per day since hostilities escalated amid the war with Iran that began on February 28, when Israel and the United States began airstrikes targeting the Iranian regime.

Although the war with Hezbollah ended with a ceasefire in November 2024, the IDF has conducted near-daily strikes on Hezbollah members who were violating the truce.

The Israeli military said on Thursday that it has pushed more forces deeper into southern Lebanon as part of an expanded buffer zone after Hezbollah began attacking Israel earlier this month.

A few days after the November 2024 ceasefire, Tiferet, her husband, father and four children returned to Kfar Yuval after months in a crowded hotel in Tiberias. She........

© The Times of Israel