Reporter's notebook: I last visited the picturesque Moshav Ramot Naftali near the Lebanese border on October 17, about two weeks after the war began. A lot has changed since then, both at a tactical and strategic level; just yesterday, ten rockets were fired towards Ramot Naftali. All landed in open areas.At a tactical level, back then, there were constant booms heard from rockets, anti-tank missiles, and gunfire. This past Monday, the air was eerily silent, save for the slight swaying of trees and bushes.A slight drizzle masked the angry and stormy-looking clouds overhead, which had been unloading rounds of torrential rain throughout the drive up from central Israel.
Of course, the silence and calm were deceptive.Increased military preparedness
The military preparations in the area were far more extensive on Monday than they were in mid-October. One spot hosted more than ten soldiers with multiple fighting vehicles, in addition to the nearby heavily fortified permanent security outpost.
Some four checkpoints precede the lookout spot, surrounded by enormous concrete columns to block the road and for protection from Hezbollah attacks. At three of the checkpoints, I was stopped and interviewed, while the fourth slowed traffic by partially blocking the road – long enough for the soldiers to take a quick look at me and deduce I was not a security threat.At least one of the checkpoints had a large sign saying “You are entering a threatened area,” another addition since October – significant because of how much further it was from the border.On October 17, I was able to drive through significant portions of Kiryat Shmona pretty quickly, only stopping toward the end of the town. And, while there were lots of military vehicles up and down the roads in October – there still were on Monday – there were fewer checkpoints and no warnings at all, this far from the border.Only a few days after October 17, all of Kiryat Shmona, and thousands more other residents across northern Israel would be evacuated due to increased Hezbollah rocket fire.But rockets were not what the soldiers at Ramot Naftali were most worried about; nor about gunfire. Other than isolated incidents, such as the attempt this past weekend by three Hamas terrorists to penetrate the border on foot, there is almost no gunfire from Lebanon these days.IDF airstrikes, tank and artillery fire throughout November and December succeeded in moving most of Hezbollah’s forces away from the border to a range where gunfire is ineffective, making the most prevalent worry nowadays over anti-tank missiles.Just on Sunday, two Israeli civilians, Mira Ayalon, 76, and her son, Barak, 45, were killed by an anti-tank missile that hit their house in Moshav Kfar Yuval.Unlike the town of Metulla, which is right up against the fence with Lebanon, Kfar Yuval is nearly a kilometer away.With Iron Dome and David’s Sling batteries defending it and Hezbollah’s Radwan forces mostly pushed back, as well as swaths of forces remaining in the area, the small number of Kfar Yuval residents who had not evacuated might have thought they were safe.The problem is that Iron Dome and David’s Sling are built to shoot down rockets that use a longer and loop-like arc trajectory – not anti-tank missiles, which are guided and can strike from eight kilometers out.This is one of the strategic shifts since October 17. At the time, Hezbollah was using rockets, anti-tank missiles, and gunfire, but was limiting its anti-tank missile attacks to military targets. This shifted recently to firing on civilian locations. The IDF does not have an easy solution.Another strategic change is the weather. The drive through the North was slowed by fog so thick I could only see a few meters ahead of me. All the cars had their blinker lights on to avoid crashing in the haze.During the weekend, when three Hamas fighters infiltrated a few hundred meters into the North, IDF sources estimate that they got as far as they did because the area was covered in the same fog we saw earlier this week.This means that, strategically, both Israel and Hezbollah’s ability to act has been degraded.Then again, all it takes is a short break from the nasty weather and a small number of well-trained anti-tank missile forces to create a sense of danger and foreboding in the North.There were also more military installations in Hezbollah’s crosshairs, including in Safed and on Mount Meron.On January 6, Hezbollah anti-tank missiles attacked portions of an important IDF air-defense base at Mount Meron, while last week, a Hezbollah drone struck the IDF’s Northern Command headquarters.The IDF said the drone hit a parking lot and caused no damage.It has already been publicly known for decades that key IDF bases have significant numbers of forces operating in underground command centers in protected “pits.”The IDF Northern Command is one of the larger bases of its kind, given that in most normal times, it runs some of the IDF’s largest and most deadly forces.High up, the mountaintop contains stunning views of large portions of Lebanon – it is also the point that provides the ability to defend against Syria.Only about three-and-a-half kilometers away, in the Old City of Safed, people did not seem to know or think very much about the drone strike.The famous Safed Candles store frequented by overseas tourists was empty when I came in, but the store owners assured me that they still are getting plenty of business and do not feel especially threatened.Despite the recent attacks closer to them, they still regarded the danger zone as closer to the border than where they were located in Safed.Safed’s Old City was also still relatively full of locals, tourists, and schoolchildren for such a rainy day. The streets were full of traffic jams and parked cars, something which was not true about areas of the North I drove through closer to the border.Then again, if Israel does not reach a diplomatic deal with Hezbollah which returns security to the northern border and feels compelled to launch a significant escalation against the terrorist group, the illusion of safety in Safed and other places which are not that far from the action may disappear.