Several Israeli families residing in communities along the Lebanese border have reportedly returned home recently despite the ongoing conflict, according to Haaretz, which collected multiple testimonies. Since Oct. 8, 2023, southern Lebanon and northern Israel have been engulfed in exchanges of near-daily cross-border fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli military, amid the Gaza war. Hezbollah has repeatedly said that its actions are in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas.

Fed up with living in hotels with their children, four families returned together to Snir, a kibbutz near Kiryat Shmona, two months ago, Haaretz reported. "We were hopeful that within a month something would happen to change the security status quo, but nothing did," one mother said. "We think about our next moves every day. There have been situations where Hezbollah escalated their fire. On several occasions, we were on alert, waiting to get in the car and leave."

A second family, who returned to the town of Dan two and a half months ago, shared a similar experience. "We spent six months at a hotel in Haifa with the entire kibbutz, which had a lot of psychological implications for the children. They weren't in their natural location. The family nucleus was damaged," explained a father. "We love the kibbutz. It's our home and we very much want to remain here and think we need to live here, even under the shadow of the danger," he emphasized.

According to Haaretz, Kibbutz Dan is located west of Mount Dov, a region where Hezbollah frequently targets with rockets and drones, and east of Kiryat Shmona, also subjected to rocket attacks.

Another family mentioned in the article expressed their eagerness to return soon to their home in Hagoshrim, located 5 km east of Kiryat Shmona, near the Lebanese border. "We started asking ourselves why we left in the first place and what had led to that decision. We felt that no new reality had emerged, compared to the one that existed when they decided to evacuate us," a family member said.

Understanding that they wouldn't be able to return home anytime soon, the aforementioned family opted for what they considered the "least undesirable option," reported Haaretz. They plan to return to the kibbutz at the end of the month with their three children

"The army didn't execute a reality-changing operation and the government didn't pursue an international deal to remove Hezbollah from the border," Haaretz commented. It noted that the evacuation order for border communities with Lebanon has been extended multiple times and is set to expire on August 31, a day before the new school year begins. Haaretz suggested the evacuation could be extended until December.

To date, only 10% of the 9,500 evacuees have returned to the region, according to Haaretz. Some returned independently, while about 500 others rented homes in nearby communities.

In southern Lebanon, daily confrontations reportedly prompted more than 96,000 residents to flee, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), cited by the Lebanese Ministry of Health.