Israeli north lost some $131mln in agriculture under Hezbollah's ops.
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Israeli reports say the occupation has thus far lost some $131 million since the start of Hezbollah's operation on the border, due to the lack of workers in the north.
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An Israeli settler sorting pomegranates in occupied Askalan, occupied Palestine, October 27, 2023 (AP)
The Israeli occupation's losses on the northern front are on a seamless uptick as the fighting continues and amid an increase in displacement from the Israeli settlements near the Lebanese borders, the Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported.
Ynet, the newspaper's online portal, reported that fear of Hezbollah's firepower has caused extensive financial damages to northern settlers, mainly to farmers, because they are unable to work on the farmland they had usurped from the people of northern Palestine and southern Lebanon. According to the Israeli outlet, the losses amount to 500 million shekels ($131 million).
"Farmers in the north complain of the difficulties to reach the farmland alongside the border area, with there being losses on two fronts: the unharvested fruits and the damages done to the next harvest season," the website said.
It also noted that no one has thus far contacted the northern farmers regarding any compensation scheme as their crops rot on the ground.
Yaron Belhassan, CEO of the Fruit Growers Organization in "Israel", told Ynet that extensive damages were done to the functional continuity of farming on the northern border, as the farmers cannot tend to their farmland and take care of their crops as part of the necessary preparations for the 2024 season.
According to Belhassan, "There are talks about severe damages, and the farmers are demanding the laying out of a plan of action to receive full compensation for the damages they incurred, as had happened during the second Lebanon war."
"If [the compensations are not handed out], entire facilities will collapse," he warned.
Israeli Farmers Federation President Dubi Amitay called for not sowing any open area that is visible to the Lebanese side, adding that while the damages cannot be precisely assessed, it is estimated that the losses amount to 500 million shekels between al-Jalil and the occupied Syrian Golan.
Settlers dread returning north
A report published in The Washington Post addressed the crisis faced by Israeli settlers amid the military escalation on the northern front with Hezbollah in Lebanon for about three months, which has led thousands of them to evacuate their settlements, fearing Resistance operations.
"This is not an official war zone. Yet explosions from Israeli artillery and Hezbollah missiles echo across the rock-strewn mountains nearly every day," the report read.
David Shtift, an Israeli settler in Kibbutz "Eilon", was quoted as saying, "What happened in the south [i.e in Gaza] was exactly what we were saying could happen here [in northern Palestine], and still could."
"It’s real," Shtift said.
The report claimed that at least 70,000 Israeli settlers had evacuated settlements in the north in the wake of the operations of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, turning the area into a closed military zone. It noted that several Israeli battalions comprising thousands of soldiers have been deployed there instead.
According to the Post, the Israeli assassination of the Deputy Head of the Political Bureau of Hamas, Saleh al-Arouri, in Beirut "heightened fears in the region that the skirmishes along this volatile borderland could explode into all-out war."
The report noted that "Israel" regards Hezbollah "as a proper army with sophisticated training and an arsenal of some 150,000 missiles," adding that many Israeli settlers fear that the Israeli government is, once again, underestimating a deadly threat.
