A visit to Israel’s northern border tied together the past of former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot – the architect of the method used against Hezbollah in the Second Lebanon War – and his future as someone seeking to lead the country from the prime minister’s office. In meetings with residents, the wounds reopened by the return of fire resurfaced and connected with the tragedy he himself endured.
“We defined goals in Gaza and Lebanon and did not carry them out,” said Eisenkot.
In the shelter next to the secretariat of Kibbutz Yiftah on the northern border, a kindergarten is operating in small groups. Every hour, parents arrive with their children to play, meet, and talk. Then they go back home, and the next group takes their place. The founders of the kibbutz, veterans of the Palmach Brigade who fought in the Upper Galilee, settled there in August 1948, three months after the declaration of independence.
“This child is the fourth generation in Yiftah,” the mother of a toddler told Eisenkot during his visit. The child’s great-grandfather, Hanan Saber, was one of the legends of Yiftah and the Galilee. “The return here after the evacuation, and the decision to build a home and stay even now, also come from the deeply ingrained historical consciousness of the people here,” said the mother.
“Just like in Yiftah, everywhere I go in Israel, I encounter this special spirit among residents and local leaders. It’s a spirit that can inspire leadership in the country,” the former chief of staff said as he left the shelter.
Eisenkot’s hosts recommended a cup of coffee at the local Glicky cart, opened six months ago by Racheli and Noach Hershko. Their son, St.-Sgt. Gal Hershko fell in Gaza in December 2023. The similarity between him and Eisenkot’s son, who bore the same name and fell in the same month, quickly came up in conversation.
“We were evacuees in Ginosar, and that’s where we heard that your Gal was killed,” Racheli told Eisenkot. “Because of the identical names, we took it very hard and identified with you. Two weeks later, our Gal was killed together with four other soldiers.”
It is a strange reality: two bereaved couples whose sons carried the same name and fell in the Gaza Strip within a short span of time meet in a kibbutz evacuated during the Israel-Hamas War, whose residents returned in a joyful convoy a year ago and now feel the ground shaking beneath their feet again.
Between fire from Lebanon and impacts in Israel, there is no time to reach shelter. Some homes do not have safe rooms, and the State of Israel still has not compensated for 45 hectares of burnt orchards.
This time, however, people are refusing to evacuate. They are insisting on running schools, making espresso, and serving sandwiches and cakes. “Mental health is no less important than physical health,” explained Asaf Langleben, head of the Upper Galilee Regional Council, describing the insistence on routine. “That’s the only way we’ll get back to growth. The condition is that the IDF sits north of the communities until there is a responsible government on the other side.”
Eisenkot believes such a scenario is achievable.
“This war is different from all the others. We are not fighting only Hezbollah; we are fighting the whole chain. Iran built it, Syria was the logistical rear, Lebanon was the arena of implementation. This is a historic opportunity to dismantle Hezbollah, stop the threat, and make a fundamental change.”
He criticized the partial achievements of the previous war.
“That was a multi-front war, but we did not realize the objectives – half an achievement in Gaza, half in Lebanon. Now there is an opportunity for change in the North. The war must end with change in Iran: dismantling the nuclear program, stopping the financing and the proxies.”
He does not see a scenario of a ground invasion of Iran.
“It’s a huge country with 90 million residents. After Iraq and Afghanistan, that would be Vietnam times a hundred. You have to strike centers of gravity.”
On the road from Yiftah to Metula, along the northern highway, a Wolt courier speeds by on a scooter carrying a delivery.
Even in Metula, they are ordering good espresso at the Bella café on HaRishonim Street. For a year and a half, the entire border strip was empty, with 70,000 evacuees and a security belt inside Israel. Tel Hai was behind walls, and driving to Metula was life-threatening. Now residents are returning and insisting on staying, but the euphoria came too early. Hezbollah is firing again.
“We defined goals in Gaza and Lebanon and did not carry them out,” Eisenkot charged, as he leads, for the first time, a campaign at the head of his own party. “In Lebanon, we hit the beepers – that was the edge of it. The more significant part was killing 10,000 to 15,000 Hezbollah operatives. That did not happen, and therefore that mission has to be completed, but there isn’t much time.”
Sixty percent of Metula’s residents have returned, and the renewed confrontation is delaying the recovery of the town.
“We are drinking coffee on HaRishonim Street because I am fighting for normalcy, for every child who returns to education,” said council head David Azoulay.
“But if they’re talking now about another round, we won’t be able to rebuild. Enough with that terminology. There is no ‘another round.’ This has to be finished once and for all. They are firing cluster munitions at us. Yesterday we buried one of our residents, and because of the situation, only her family was allowed to attend the funeral. The political echelon is cooling down the army. The IDF is ready for action with a knife between its teeth.”
Through disproportionate firepower: The Dahiya doctrine
In the town’s war room, they watched footage from the Lebanese border. Eisenkot, with deep experience in Lebanon, from company commander to head of Northern Command, identified familiar places. Hezbollah’s tunnels are a living memory from his time as chief of staff. He explained that the Dahiya doctrine which he formulated before the Second Lebanon War, is still relevant: asymmetric and disproportionate firepower against centers of power and civilian infrastructure used by the enemy.
According to that doctrine, the IDF would respond with enormous force against every village from which fire is launched and create widespread destruction in order to shorten the fighting and restore deterrence.
“We destroyed 246 Hezbollah targets, the greatest achievement in that war,” he recalled.
Later, the doctrine was extended to villages and towns that had become Hezbollah strongholds.
“We need to evacuate the population there for its own protection, strike all the thousands of targets there, and destroy them. In the end, the center of gravity of the Hezbollah organization is the Shi’ite population in Lebanon. Today, all the residents of Dahiya are evacuating to Christian areas that hate them bitterly.
“That is the greatest humiliation for them. It gives Israel freedom of action, and therefore even today one has to act according to the principle of maximum force in minimum time and reach an agreement,” he said.
“The most important thing is the massive destruction of capabilities, quickly. From the descriptions, you can see that it’s not strong and powerful enough. There has to be a ground maneuver to improve the defense of the northern communities. How deep to maneuver – that is the question.”
Implementing this policy, he believes, would bring “an achievement for generations. The achievement will be that settlement returns to Metula, Kiryat Shmona, and Yiftah.”
“I’m avoiding criticism on days like these, but the government must call up all the draft dodgers.”
At a time when Israel is dealing with a multi-front war, Eisenkot also addressed the reluctance of many in the haredi public to share the national burden.
“As of this moment, as we speak, there are tens of thousands of draft dodgers and deserters,” Eisenkot said.
“It’s a crazy phenomenon. You don’t hear anyone condemning the draft dodgers and the deserters. Today, the government should have issued a call to all the draft dodgers: You have until Independence Day to return immediately and enlist. Instead, they are flattering Gafni and Deri and trying to do tricks and shticks.”
He added: “This is a government in offside. This week, it is trying to give them a budget with a lot of money so they will keep the government alive until September. I am avoiding criticism of the government on days like these, but the government must today call on all deserters and draft dodgers: Enough. This is an emergency hour for Israel.”untries in this region, rather than continue to side with Israel at the expense of its Arab partners. For the continuation of this approach will weaken those alliances and threaten the common interests that have been built over decades.”