The Israeli Globes website conducted a recent study involving 340 settlers who have evacuated the occupied north, examining the impact of the eviction months since the northern front was ignited. 

The study's findings pained a "harsh image" of groups that are experiencing mental crises because they felt neglected and abandoned by the Israeli occupation. The sampled settlers also reported struggling to go back to ordinary life, according to the website. 

Israeli professor Meirav Aharon-Gutman, who was leading the study, said the occupation government and military "did not work in accordance to their drawn plan, nor did they mobilize to find a solution," noting that settlers residing in northern border settlements, "the guardians of agriculture, nature, and the borders, felt that the evacuation ruined the basic nature of their lives."

Gutman added that the issue of education was more prominent than other problems stemming from the evacuation. She noted that parents have to enroll their children in school by the set deadline of September 1, but have no idea where to enroll them because many had to pause their education amid the evacuation. 

She further stated that students who had graduated during the COVID-19 pandemic have no regard for the "idea of school", emphasizing that the younger generation does not have study habits, which keeps expanding the educational gap. 

A Dramatic Quake

The study showed that more than a third of the sampled settlers were concerned about the state of security, as well as the absence of services in the occupied north, and have been telling their children not to return to the "hostage life" in the north. 

An additional finding revealed that settlers were taken by surprise at the evacuation order. 77% of settlers reportedly never expected that they would have to leave their houses, while 91% did not expect the evacuation to last more than three months. 

Related News

Israeli shelters exposed, ineffective against Iranian missiles

Gov. abandoned north, failed to aid settlers: Israeli official

Moreover, 36% of respondents revealed that they were currently unemployed, while 34% reported working from home. The study shows a dispersion between unemployment, unpaid leave, new jobs, and working at the same job but in a different geographical location. 

Regarding the educational sector, most students have been studying in temporary learning facilities in shelters. 

In the mental and familial scope, 23% of respondents said their family relations have been damaged, whereas a fifth resorted to mental health treatments due to the increased substance abuse (smoking, alcohol intake...).

Globes stated that the state of emergency deepens the crises, and time plays its role. As it passes, psychological drainage grows. 

Conditions of Return

It was also emphasized that 74% of respondents have conditioned their return with a security military operation that pushes Hezbollah far from the border, or at least guarantees constant military presence in the area. 

Aside from that, 55% believe that only a large-scale war would change the situation. 

For the future, 73% stated that the northern settler population would decrease, while only 32% believed that the conflict would pass with the situation going back to normal. 63% emphasized that they do not rely on the occupation government to provide a swift return. 

According to Aharon-Gutman, a wide-scale and holistic operation, that should have been planned and launched months ago, is the only way settlers would return to the occupied north. 

"If we examine the methods the government was employing to execute the northern plan, we can see that it has failed," the Israeli professor said. 

The report suggests viewing the war as a series of separate events that could destroy old neighborhoods which include buildings with no or barely any solid foundations, to build new ones.