"Welcome to the most beautiful place in the world," says Itzik Cohen, rabbi of Ashdot Ya'akov Mauchad, when we stop at Gan Avner. This is a sweet corner at the edge of the kibbutz that was established in memory of Avner Alter, a member of the place, who was killed in the helicopter disaster. And opposite - the winter green carpets of the Jordan Valley, with the white blossoming reeds on the edge of the Yarmukh. To the west of us is the Jordan River, to the east of the Yarmukh, and in the background the mountains of Gilead and the southern Golan rise. Like a postcard.
"This year we had an abundance of rains, everything is green, and the wheat is especially tall," explains Itzik.
Beneath the dazzling beauty, the tension of life in the neighborhood of the perimeter fence, not far from the border triangle Jordan-Syria-Israel, seethes.
The border fence with Jordan is spread out right below us, at a distance of 800 meters.
On good days it was possible to go down to it, go for a run or a walk near it.
But times are not the same.
Only farmers with a special sticker on their vehicle are allowed to get off near the winding border with the Yarmukh route.
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Itzik (58) was born in Carmel Castle to a family that immigrated from Turkey.
After serving in Golani, he joined with Yifat, his wife, a nurse by profession, in Kibbutz Hulit in the Gaza Strip, as a farmer and a Rabbi. "Then there was no fence with Gaza, only a trench against theft.
Our eldest daughter was born in Holit, but after four years, 31 years ago, we moved to Ashdot Ya'akov.
My replacement in the Berbeshats in Holit was murdered on October 7."
That Shabbat, all he had to do in the early hours was to try to calm his wife and daughter-in-law, who were taking care of their son, Yoni, who serves as a permanent duty officer in the 13th Battalion in Golani.
We went through very difficult hours of worry.
His wife was then in her ninth month.
But then the standby squad at the kibbutz was jumped by order 8, and I went out to open the armory and deploy the force.
There are currently 16 members in the standby class, and now after consolidation we are 23 soldiers in the HJMR (territorial defense). The average age is 44. The youngest is 23, and I am the oldest.
And many alerts.
Some are false readings due to the passage of pigs.
The quadrupeds are not moved by the limit set by humans, and in recent times they have been multiplying, since hunting in the area has been banned due to security tensions.
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The warnings of the truth have also multiplied since the war.
Itzik: "There is a massive increase in the apprehensions of arms smuggling and migrant workers. They come from Turkey, Georgia, Africa, Asia. We initially treat every incident of entering the fence as a security incident, until it turns out that they are migrant workers, and then it is criminal. We counted more than 15 incidents here of penetration since the beginning of the war".
It is difficult to say whether the increase is in the penetration attempts themselves, which became a phenomenon even before the war, or rather in their perceptions.
guns?
Don't build on it
The IDF has tripled the number of soldiers in the area, and now the guarding of the perimeter fence is tighter. "We are happy about this, because the fence itself is in bad shape," says Itzik, "if animals can pass, so can humans.
The presence of increased military forces reassures the residents.
Since October 7 it is not easy to live in Israel near a border, even if it is a border with a country with which we have peace.
On a personal level, I am not afraid of Jordan, because it is controlled by an organized army, but some residents are afraid.
In the end, there is a population there that is mostly Palestinian and culturally similar to the residents of the Gaza Strip.
If thousands of terrorists came out of there who murdered and abused and did unimaginable things, there is a fear that they could do it here as well.
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"October 7 played the cards for everyone. The Jordanians are also afraid of the unknown, and that's why the army there shoots a lot more. We passed nights here where from sunset to sunrise the shooting did not stop. In the past, both the Israeli and Jordanian armies would shoot into the water to prevent infiltration. It seems that this is what Which happened now as well. At first we did not receive a report before the shooting, only after it was reported that it was a normal shooting. Now we receive a report before that, because there is close coordination between the Jordanian army and the IDF.
In the last week in our area the shooting has calmed down.
I don't know what is happening along the entire valley."
Shooting at night, both due to the physical proximity and due to the wind moving within the curves of the mountains, sounds especially close.
"It's a feeling that we're being shot at inside the kibbutz. Of course, a lot of questions came from worried residents. Luckily, we have a community resilience team among the best in the area, guys who provide work here, and they managed to calm the tense atmosphere."
I understood from residents that there was not only shooting, but also shouting and sirens.
"That's right. These are probably demonstrations in the villages of the Palestinians, mainly in Al-Adisa, which was established on the basis of refugees from 'Tzemach'. Usually after an hour it calms down. The Jordan Valley is a quite quiet place, but a lot of things happen there. We had a UAV that came from Syria and blew up over Kibbutz Ha'on, and 27 years ago we had the girls from Beit Shemesh that a Jordanian soldier murdered in Naharim.
I plowed a field there two hours before, and it was a very difficult event that I experienced personally.
But other than that, we had no infiltration by terrorists."
There are estimates that Iranians are on the Jordanian-Syrian border. It's not far from here.
"These are questions I ask the army, but at the moment there is no reference to it. It is important for us to know that there is someone guarding us. We understand that soon our GMR teams will be released, I support that.
I believe it is possible to return to normal.
The emergency department will continue to operate in a condensed manner.
We received an allocation for this, as well as excellent equipment from the army and donations.
There are many people who want to be part of the standby class.
Everyone understood that keeping the house is the most important thing."
Are the kibbutz residents arming themselves?
"Everyone. My daughter is a nurse in Poria like her mother. She and her husband, who have never touched a gun, were issued a license, and so are many others. We are an eligible settlement because we are close to a fence, but I really don't trust these guns in a real incident. The owners of the guns will keep Their families, and the standby unit will protect the kibbutz."
"Understand that there is something good here"
Kibbutz Ashdot Ya'akov Mauched has about 800 people.
To the south of it lies Kibbutz Ashdot Ya'akov Ihud, which has about 1,000 residents.
Both belong to the Jordan Valley Council, were privatized but kept the community.
"The Jordan Valley is the most touristic place in Israel, with 3.5 million people passing through here in the summer," boasts Itzik, "When I came here in 1993, I could sleep on Route 90 and a car wouldn't pass. Today there is both busy traffic and times of massive traffic jams. Then 6,000 people lived here, and today there are already 23,000 people living in the Jordan Valley."
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He points to a new commercial center that is being built, to a new dairy farm that is being built, to the well-kept banana and avocado plantations, and to the wheat fields that shine in bright green: "People realized that there is something good here. Open up more areas for construction, there are community extensions. This is paradise, everyone says That. And slowly people are getting back to normal."
Along with the return to routine, IDF senior officials clarify that following October 7, despite the close relationship and excellent military coordination with Jordan, they are preparing for any scenario, including a surprise on the Jordanian side or a loss of control there, while at the same time carefully guarding the border from the infiltration of migrant workers and arms smuggling.
Is your son fighting in Gaza?
"My son is currently at home. He fought in Gaza for two months, during which he only went out once for 24 hours for the birth of his daughter. He is one of the only MPs in the 13th Battalion left standing, two were killed and others were wounded.
This is a battalion that took the hardest hit and also lost the Major General, Tomer Greenberg. My son also lost Maj. Dekel Soysa."
Itzik tells about a special meeting, which only the Israeli reality can produce.
About a month ago, an intelligence officer came to the kibbutz to give the Rabbi the latest maps. "She was crying all the time, so I asked her: 'Why are you crying?
We are winning in Gaza.'
She said that her partner did not survive it.
I asked what his name was, and she said 'Soysa Palm'.
I pulled out my cell phone and showed her a video of my new granddaughter.
'Nice to meet you, this is Abigail Dekel,' I told her and told her that my son, Yoni, named his daughter after the favorite soldier in his company. She of course knew Yoni, and there was great excitement. She asked me to send her as many pictures of her granddaughter as possible."
"Settlement will not stop terrorism"
We meet Orna Shimoni, in work clothes and boots, hair sloppily gathered and scissors in hand, on the hill of the picked flowers.
It's still morning, but for her, who gets up at four for gardening work, it's already the middle of the day.
She established the garden in memory of the seven female students who lost their lives on the Peace Island in 1997, in front of her eyes, after she finished guiding a tour of her granddaughter's class in Naharim.
I interviewed her about five years ago, and then I was captivated by the vitality of this multi-talented and vision-fulfilling woman.
Even now, at the age of 82, as a mother of five and a grandmother of 15 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, she remains impressive in her actions, dedication and fiery speech, but it seems that something has broken in her.
To the question, "How are you?", she gives a sharp answer: "Tar. Last time I told you that there isn't a minute that goes by that I don't think about Eyal, my young son who fell in Lebanon, but since October 7 there isn't a minute that I don't think about the murdered and kidnapped. Today my personal pain is dwarfed by What happened. Entire families were murdered, stories you didn't even hear in the Holocaust. There they entered the gas chambers without believing they were going to die, and here the murdered were fully aware.
Memorial in the Jordan Valley, photo: Yehoshua Yosef
"My parents immigrated to Israel in the 1920s and 1930s. I didn't live in the shadow of the Holocaust, even though my grandmother was murdered in Lithuania, but now I can't talk or think about anything else, except the massacre that happened. I did a year of service in Otef as the coordinator of the 'Olim camps' In the Western Negev. I personally coached Barry's youth group. They are all deep in my heart. Since the massacre, I feel that my death is better than my life."
Eyal, her son, an armored personnel officer, was killed in 1997 at the Rihan outpost. This was not her first loss. Her brother, Shmuel Levin, a pilot in the reserves, was killed in 1977 in a training accident. Her husband, Dr. Uzi Shimoni, died in 1992. suddenly.
Her vigorous and boyish image was engraved in the public's consciousness as one of the prominent activities of "four mothers", in which she was active even before she had a son.
She later supported disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
In recent years, she visited Judea and Samaria a lot and formed friendships with settlers.
She opposes refusals and is a long-time activist for the return of missing persons and abductees, stopped with her hand the Brinks vehicle that transferred millions to the Gaza Strip, as part of the struggle for the release of Gilad Shalit, and was arrested.
She continued to be a regular activist in the "Mesder Hadar", for the restoration of Hadar Goldin.
Even now every night she is in the abductees' square. "If we don't return all the abductees, all of them, we won't have a country.
This is a world view that has been with me for many years.
The most important value of Zionism is evil.
That's why I support the idea of 'everyone for everyone', without going into the strategy.
I oppose the humanitarian aid that goes to Gaza in the hands of Hamas without any compensation.
Humanitarian should be for humanitarian.
Bibi surrendered in this matter completely and gave them everything.
As long as Hamas receives the aid, and they are the ones who distribute it, it means that Hamas is in control."
She felt the security tensions in the region very well.
"This morning there were shouts again coming from Jordan. There were more voices. Sometimes it lasted for an hour, sometimes for many hours. You hear sounds of running, rhythmic steps and shouts. I demanded to understand what it was, and they explained to me that there was a course for officers of the Jordanian army and they increased the training to prevent awakening With them. When there is shooting, they inform us about it, and there are good relations and coordination between the armies. In the end, who protects Jordan? Israel. If it wasn't for our army, the Syrians would have been there a long time ago."
It is interesting that the peace agreement with Jordan, which did not involve withdrawals, was preserved, while the withdrawals from the security zone in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip blew up in our faces.
"The withdrawals are not the problem. The problem is the lack of response after them. After the Second Lebanon War, they reached an agreement that Hezbollah would not pass the litany, but Israel did not respond immediately and allowed Hezbollah to strengthen near the fence. The same is true in the Gaza Strip, there should have been a sharp response to the first balloon. It is forbidden They should have been allowed to build positions from which you can see the showers in the kibbutzim. But the Israeli government did not respond and threw all the blame on Hamas. I am a left-wing woman, but I have never supported turning the other cheek. When an agreement is violated, you have to strike immediately."
The border with Jordan, photo: Yehoshua Yosef
It doesn't work that way.
There is always a tendency to keep quiet, even if it is fake.
What prevents an area from becoming a habitat for terrorism is settlement, which requires action inside.
We see what happened in the Gaza Strip and what happened in northern Samaria, and we see that the withdrawal from the security zone in Lebanon turned our north into a security zone.
"The settlement is not a deterrent to terrorism, but an attraction to murder. This is what happened to the settlement in the Gaza Envelope, and this is what may, God forbid, happen to Gilboa with Jenin. Terrorism must be struck immediately. I have never supported the idea of peace now, but I believe in striving For peace. In the coming years, we must control security, but I believe that we can retreat to the borders of a Jewish majority for generations, that is, to maintain settlement blocs in the West Bank, but to establish a Palestinian state with the support of Saudi Arabia and the countries of the Abraham Accords, Egypt and Jordan.
I am not ready to accept the statement that we are doomed to live by the sword.
I have eight grandchildren who are currently enlisted.
My grandson took out with his own hands the mother and son who were killed by an anti-tank missile in Kfar Yuval. I know the price of war, and I am not ready to live with the thought that this is the future of my descendants."
swim so as not to drown
Orna says goodbye to the fresh anemones she planted in the flower hill and goes to take care of the garden at the entrance to Beit Eyal, her work clothes still on her.
She built the impressive and unique place with her nine fingers (one was amputated when she managed the kibbutz's concrete plant) and with 35 million shekels of donations she raised.
It is a sports and health center, with a normal pool, therapeutic pools, a gym and more, which emphasizes integrating different audiences, especially children and adults with disabilities.
Above the pool, and against the background of the wading waters of life, the dead are silent along the "Lebanon Cedars" axis - an exposed concrete corridor where all the victims of the Lebanese wars since the establishment of the state, soldiers and civilians, are commemorated.
The names of the spaces are engraved on glass panels, and images of their faces run on video screens.
Many educational tours are held there, some of them guided by Shimoni herself, which review all the most prominent and difficult events that the State of Israel has known on its northern border, the Avivim disaster, and Ma'alot, and the Night of the Flashes, and the Tsur disaster, and the Ron Arad disaster, and the helicopter disaster, and the Sheyat and the Saluki and the First and Second Lebanon Wars.
And who knows, the heart skips a beat in front of the bare concrete at the end of the corridor that screams its emptiness, maybe even the Third Lebanon War.
Evacuees from the north and the south came to the Jordan Valley, and it is impossible to understand the atmosphere of the war in the valley without them.
Beit Eyal opened its doors to the evacuees and allowed them free entry to the regular swimming pool.
We meet Hagar Wilensi, 79 years old, coming out of hydrotherapy treatment.
She was born in Kfar Giladi and raised her five children there.
Today she is already a grandmother to 13 grandchildren and has one great-granddaughter.
"We are currently in a terrible situation," she says, "we have been living outside the village of Giladi for almost four months. We have gone through all the periods of Katyusha and infiltration, and we have never left. I am no longer a young woman and it is not easy. We are currently in an Ohlu mansion near the Sea of Galilee. Fortunately, we arrived as a community to the Jordan Valley and there is an organized community here that receives us very well, gave us a replacement home and also allows us to maintain the life of the Kfar Giladi community, about 700 people.
"I am after hip replacement surgery, and I was looking for a place where I could continue the activities that were stopped in the middle of the rehabilitation. We found here, in Beit Eil, an amazing place. First of all, from the beginning, they accepted us without consideration. Later, when I started individual hydrotherapy treatments, they arranged the payment with the health insurance fund . This place embraces. I am thankful for that."
Do you have the strength to continue living out of suitcases?
"It is not up to us. We are in a very bad situation, we do not know what will happen tomorrow. The uncertainty is in the whole State of Israel, but in ours more. I came to visit the house only once during the ceasefire. My husband came more to Kfar Giladi, because it is difficult to say goodbye to decency. Lucky The standby unit took it upon themselves to take care of the landscaping and keep the place undamaged. We recently built a lovely neighborhood in Kfar Giladi, but everyone sitting there on the balcony feels like they are being photographed by Hezbollah. Here, on the other hand, despite the proximity to Jordan, there is a safe feeling. I sleep well here More than at home."
In the busy gym we meet Neta Ben Atia, a fitness instructor from Metula.
"I applied independently to Kibbutz Sha'ar Golan. I am originally from Katsrin and moved to Metula, the perfect city, about four years ago. I fell in love with the north, and I intend to return there after Hezbollah is not sitting on our heads. I understand that it will take time."
In Metula she left not only a home but also a business, a training studio that was just experiencing prosperity, until she had to close it.
"My roommate in the apartment in Metula is from the Golan Gate, so at first we came to her parents and then they arranged a room for us in a kibbutz. We pay for it. Luckily, the owner of the apartment we rented in Metula has a big heart and understands the situation, so we don't pay rent for the apartment there. Most of my husband The apartments ask for rent, and then people have to pay both rent for houses they can't live in and for their lives elsewhere. We get grants from the state, but it's not enough for living expenses, housing and a car. I started working at Beit Il for a few hours, and I hope to find employment It's not easy, but there's nothing you can do - if you don't swim, you drown.
"The people in the Jordan Valley are very warm, overall there is a peaceful atmosphere. Every now and then there is a 'Turkish cavalry', a warning about infiltration from Jordan. I personally am not excited by it. They say to shut yourself in your houses, so you drink coffee, what can you do. There are also shots that you hear from Jordan, But I understood that it was in coordination with the IDF.
The feeling of not having a home is very difficult.
People don't understand that home is your safe place, your shelter from the world.
I came to visit the house in Metula once.
It's seeing and crying."
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