Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi (IDF, Res.) is founder and president of Alma, an Israeli institute specializing in security challenges along the Lebanese border. She served for fifteen years in the IDF Intelligence Corps, initially in research and analysis and later with the Northern Command.
Yesterday, a devastating tragedy occurred during an organized school field trip in the Upper Galilee. Pupils from the Ort Ma'alot Yeshiva High School were participating in an authorized hike along the Ramim Ridge when they encountered an unexploded cluster submunition, a remnant of the Hezbollah rocket barrages that targeted northern Israel. The teenagers handled the explosive device, triggering a massive detonation. One 15-year-old boy was killed. Twenty-four other students were injured, two of them critically.
The boy who was killed was our neighbor. He attended fencing classes with my daughter. He came from a family of outstanding fencers. The loss is intensely personal, and it underscores a grim reality: the Israeli North, an area beloved by Israelis for its natural, open landscapes, is littered with the remnants of war, shrapnel, rocket components, and unexploded ordnance (UXOs) from Hezbollah's attacks.
It is incredibly difficult to clear these vast terrains. The tragedy of yesterday vividly illustrates the lethal price of war, even after the active fighting subsides. Our children are paying this price every single day. The physical danger is now tragically apparent, but they also endure the less visible costs: educational gaps, psychological trauma, and the constant tension of disrupted lives.
As I processed this disaster, my thoughts also turned to the Lebanese side of the border. There, the terrain is also saturated with the remnants of a war begun by Hezbollah. But in Lebanon, the danger is far worse. The ground is not just littered with unexploded ordnance from the conflict; it is actively packed with Hezbollah’s unlaunched weaponry, hidden deliberately within civilian infrastructure, beneath homes, in bedrooms, and inside villages. The scale of danger in Lebanon is massive.
It is in this context that we should examine the current international discourse regarding the deployment of a new multinational force in Lebanon to replace or bolster UNIFIL.
Lebanon desperately needs international assistance, but it does not need another international military force to play a game of pretend. Deploying, once again, thousands of foreign troops to southern Lebanon under a mandate to disarm Hezbollah is a strategic fantasy. A multinational force will not voluntarily engage in combat with Hezbollah, and Hezbollah will not disarm voluntarily. Imposing this framework will simply lock us into another 20 years of the exact same status quo.
What Lebanon actually needs is profound international civilian intervention. It requires assistance with humanitarian relief, post-war reconstruction, and UXO clearance. International actors should work directly with the Lebanese Armed Forces to train them in bomb disposal and infrastructure repair.
Furthermore, Lebanon needs an international effort committed to breaking Hezbollah's shadow state.
-This means building alternative schools for the Shiite - Lebanese base so they are not dependent on Hezbollah's indoctrination mechanisms.
-It means international resolve to entirely block Hezbollah’s financial activities, particularly in Europe. It is unacceptable that European states still permit Hezbollah’s "civilian" and social apparatus to operate and raise funds on their soil, failing to understand that this very apparatus is what keeps the terror army breathing.
Dismantling this parallel state is grueling, long-term work. But many Lebanese citizens want it. International intervention should focus on empowering these civilian and structural changes, not on placing foreign soldiers on a border they will not defend.
Recently, while standing at a memorial for the Druze children murdered by a Hezbollah rocket in Majdal Shams, someone asked me how I keep from losing my humanity in this environment. I replied that losing our humanity is simply not an option.
We are forced to fight decisively because we are facing a terror army that worships death and openly seeks our destruction. But we also hold onto our humanity, for our children, and for a future that must ultimately look different.