Zar'it

Zar'it sits on Israel's border with Lebanon in the Upper Galilee, with its northernmost orchards abutting the Lebanese frontier.[1] The moshav occupies high ground at roughly 700 meters above sea level and belongs to the Ma'ale Yosef Regional Council, which encompasses 22 communities along this stretch of the border.[1][5]

Zar'it was established in August 1967, two months after the Six-Day War, as part of a program to reinforce Jewish settlement in the Galilee near the Lebanese border.[2] The moshav was one of several border communities — including Shtula and Netu'a — founded in late 1966 and during 1967 for that purpose.[2] The founding framework traced back to a Central Galilee development project begun in 1963 by the Israeli government, the Jewish National Fund, and the Jewish Agency's settlement department, under which a village bloc was established near the Lebanese border encompassing Biranit, Shetulah, Netu'ah, and Zarit.[6]

The first settlers were among the roughly 15 families who arrived in 1967, most of them young adults in their twenties.[1] Early conditions were spartan: the community initially had neither electricity nor roads.[1] Residents who arrived in the following year, such as Yaakov and Nurit Derei, recalled not only the material hardships but persistent security threats — Nurit Derei described dropping to the ground to shield her young son while hanging laundry as gunfire came from a hill opposite, with bullets passing close by.[2] There was no fence along the border at all until after the Yom Kippur War.[2]

The founding settlers came from moshavim and kibbutzim and were described as young, motivated, and ideological.[2] The state directed border-area moshav residents toward laying-hen farms as a primary livelihood, with families receiving a henhouse and a production quota.[2] For resident Yossi Adoni, whose farm held 3,000 laying hens, the poultry sector served as "an oxygen pipeline" for border communities.[2] About 70 percent of Israel's roughly 3,000 poultry farmers lived in Galilee communities near the Lebanese border at that time.[2]

Zar'it's proximity to Lebanon has meant recurring security threats throughout its existence. Israel lodged a complaint with the United Nations as early as 1977 regarding attacks from Lebanon targeting the community.[1] Following Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah repeatedly shelled the area with Katyusha rockets in the years that followed.[1] In July 2004, two soldiers were killed by sniper fire at the nearby Nurit post while repairing an antenna.[1]

The event most closely associated with Zar'it in modern Israeli history occurred on the morning of July 12, 2006. At approximately 9:00 a.m., a Hezbollah terrorist force attacked two IDF patrol vehicles traveling from Zar'it to Shtula on a routine mission.[4] Three reserve soldiers were killed in the ambush, and two others — Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev — were abducted and taken into Lebanon.[7][4] Rockets were simultaneously fired at border communities including Zar'it.[8]

An Israeli government account reports that four tank crew members and another soldier were also killed later that day during recovery efforts, bringing the total Israeli military fatalities on July 12 to eight.[8] That same night, the Israeli cabinet voted unanimously to respond to the attack, embarking on what became the Second Lebanon War.[4]

On the second anniversary of the abduction, dozens of Goldwasser and Regev's friends visited the site near Zar'it, where metal fragments remained embedded in the rocks.[7] One visitor recalled the difficulty of imagining Hezbollah members watching the area from nearby hills, tens of meters from the border; another said he felt chills standing at the place where the abduction had occurred.[7]

Zar'it has also been a focal point of Hezbollah's underground infrastructure. A tunnel originating in the Lebanese village of Remiyah passed beneath the border and ran toward Zarit and the nearby community of Shtura.[9] Carved through hard limestone over several years, the tunnel featured a spiral staircase descending 260 feet and a passage extending 250 feet into Israeli territory, equipped with electricity, ventilation, communications equipment, and storage space.[9] The source presented the tunnel as part of an operational concept for Hezbollah's Radwan forces to emerge and attack an Israeli civilian community.[9]

On December 20, 2018, during the second phase of Operation Northern Shield, the IDF detonated what it described as a Hezbollah terror tunnel in the area of Moshav Zar'it.[10] Residents were notified in advance that the detonation would not endanger the population or buildings, and the neutralization was conducted entirely from Israeli territory.[10]

In October 2024, the IDF reported discovering an additional underground route near Moshav Zar'it, close to Wadi al-Ali in the western sector of southern Lebanon.[11] Approximately 20 meters long, the route extended about 10 meters into Israeli territory beneath the path along the security fence.[11] The IDF said it had been under its control for several months, was discovered while excavation was still underway, and was not yet open on the Israeli side; forces found weapons, explosive equipment, and anti-tank missiles inside.[11] The IDF assessed that the route had been dug during the preceding two years.[11]

Beginning on October 8, 2023, Hezbollah launched drones and fired anti-tank missiles and mortar shells along the northern border, opening a sustained terrorist campaign that repeatedly affected Zar'it.[12] Around 4:00 p.m. on October 17, 2023, anti-tank missiles were fired at the village, and IDF forces responded with artillery fire.[13]

On July 7, 2024, two anti-tank missiles struck Zar'it.[14] The IDF initially reported one soldier lightly wounded; a 31-year-old American employee of a civilian company was also seriously injured. A Galilee Medical Center statement said a soldier and a civilian were hospitalized in a surgical department.[14] On September 10, 2024, Hezbollah fired 15 rockets at the community as part of its continuing attacks on northern Israel.[15]

The sustained threat forced an evacuation of Zar'it following October 7, 2023.[16] Residents such as Lily and Menachem Adoni relocated first to Tiberias and subsequently to rented accommodation near family in the Ashdod area, expecting a displacement of a month or two that ultimately lasted a year and a half.[16] Their home in Zar'it stood empty and required extensive renovation upon their return.[16] A February 2026 report said the overwhelming majority of residents had returned by then.[16]

On July 9, 2025, the IDF launched a focused ground operation in southern Lebanon to dismantle reestablished Hezbollah military positions around the Jabal Blat ridge and Labbouneh, near Zarit and Shlomi.[12] Israeli reservists destroyed weapons depots, firing positions, and an underground storage facility, with the operations described as intended to enforce ceasefire terms.[12] During a December 2024 tour of Metulla, Zar'it, and Shtula, the Israel State Comptroller visited homes and a school damaged by Hezbollah attacks and recorded council heads' complaints about the response to damage, including electricity and water outages and damage caused by rats during residents' prolonged absence.[17]

Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics recorded Zar'it — officially listed as Kefar Rozenwald (Zarit) — with a population of 351 and a Jewish settlement date of 1967 in its 2019 locality list.[3] A 2023 news report estimated "some 250 people," while a 2017 report placed the figure at approximately 300.[5][2] These figures were recorded in different years and formats and reflect population fluctuations over time.

By 2017, 60 percent of residents were over 70 years old.[2] The community comprised 48 families of founding members and 35 families of returning sons, while residents spoke of young people leaving due to limited employment and livelihood opportunities.[2] The moshav lacked local kindergartens, schools, supermarkets, and clinics, requiring residents to travel for basic services.[2] Development plots were available — 13 were ready for marketing, with further expansion in advanced approval stages — but demand was limited, with each plot priced at NIS 300,000.[2] Some homes in the border area were being purchased as vacation properties rather than permanent residences.[2]

An agricultural crisis in Israel in the late 1980s dealt the community a heavy blow.[1] At various points residents diversified into orchards, chicken and goat farming, cattle, grape cultivation, and small guest-house operations.[1]

Despite the years of conflict and displacement, Zar'it has shown signs of demographic renewal. The community's former kindergarten building had stood unused for some 20 years as the number of children declined.[16] When new families arrived and childcare demand increased, the Ma'ale Yosef Regional Council invested 2.5 million shekels to renovate and reopen the building as a daycare.[16] The facility, named Shoshanim in memory of four people killed in a nearby village during the latest campaign in Lebanon, opened with 14 toddlers and a waiting list.[16] Lily Adoni — who arrived in Zar'it in 1967 and served as its first kindergarten teacher — saw her one-and-a-half-year-old great-granddaughter among the children attending the reopened facility.[16]

The Jabal Balat military outpost is situated above Zar'it and is known among veterans of the Lebanon War and the years that followed as "Karkum Outpost." The position was designed to protect the area around Shtula and Zar'it.[12] A concrete border wall has been under construction nearby since 2017; as of a 2023 report, approximately 30 percent of the wall had been completed.[5]