NETIV HASHAYARA – Within moments after a barrage of rockets from Hezbollah landed throughout northern Israel on Thursday morning, avocado farmer Michael Boyarsky stepped outside his bomb shelter to see the billowing smoke coming from his next-door neighbor’s house, 80 meters (87 yards) away, that sits on the edge of Boyarsky’s avocado grove.

A Soviet-designed Grad rocket made a direct hit on the house. Its owner wasn’t home, and nobody was hurt, but the ensuing blaze was spreading rapidly, burning up a row of Boyarsky’s newly planted avocado trees.

Instead of waiting for fire trucks to arrive, Boyarsky yanked a hose from the irrigation line that ran through his avocado groves and got to work spraying water to dose the fire.

Eventually, fire trucks arrived. Until then, neighbors around the village came and helped extinguish the fire.

“It warmed my heart seeing everyone run to help,” said Boyarsky’s wife Margalit as she took this reporter to view the damage to the house on Friday, the following day. “But the attack shows how dangerous it all is.”

The rockets that fell in the community were part of a barrage of more than 120 rockets and several drones launched at northern Israel on Thursday morning.

It was the Simchat Torah holiday, exactly one year after the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Simchat Torah — which fell on October 7, 2023 — when thousands stormed into Israel, murdering some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages to Gaza.

Since October 8, Hezbollah has fired almost daily attacks on Israel, saying it was doing so in support of the Gaza-based terror group.

After suffering nearly a year of cross-border attacks, Israel stepped up its retaliation back in September with a combination of strikes against commanders in the field and senior leaders in Beirut, which decimated its leadership and crippled much of its capabilities.

The attacks on northern Israel have killed 29 civilians, while 55 IDF soldiers have died in cross-border skirmishes, and the ensuing ground operation launched in southern Lebanon in late September.

There was the lingering smell of fire on Friday, the following day.

Margalit walked to the edge of her property, navigating through the debris of burnt doors, furniture and chairs burnt to a crisp. Oranges hung from a charred tree.

The rocket had landed in the backyard; shrapnel from the rocket, as well as the Iron Dome interceptor, scattered into their daughter’s backyard about 100 meters (103 yards) away.

One piece of shrapnel pierced through the outer wall of the family’s small packaging facility and then lodged into an interior wall on the other side.

“It’s only because it was a holiday that nobody was working,” Margalit said. “Otherwise, people could have gotten seriously hurt or killed.”

She said they heard the warning siren of an incoming attack “only moments” before they heard “a very loud” explosion, which shattered the quiet of the holiday.

She and her husband waited in their shelter for about 10 minutes and then, when they thought it was safe, they walked outside to see the black clouds of smoke and fires at the start of their avocado groves.

Netiv Hasharaya is about 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from the Lebanese border. It’s known as a working moshav, or agricultural village, with individual farms, founded in 1950. Most of its founders were from Iran, Kurdistan and Iraq who started small family farms and still sometimes share farming equipment.

Today, there are about 100 families. There is one dairy farmer still in operation, but most of the other farms specialize in avocadoes. There are also several guesthouses, but, “no people are coming to stay,” said guesthouse owner Ronny Gavrieli.

Farmers rode tractors along the road. Laundry hanging on clotheslines next to residents’ houses gently swayed in the breeze. The scene had the impression of peaceful normalcy while in the distance stood the hilly border of Lebanon, serving as an ominous backdrop.

The IDF Home Front Command has restricted gatherings, and schools are closed. But, said Margalit, the residents are steadfast in their refusal to leave.

“We weren’t evacuated, and we’re not evacuating,” said Margalit.

Michael Boyarsky said that there were attacks on houses during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, but this was the first time anything had landed in the community since the current round of fighting.

The community is located across from the Arab town of Sheikh Danun, and relations between the communities are “fine,” Margalit said.

“We could live together so nicely,” she said. “This war is so unnecessary, but Hezbollah doesn’t want us here, so we don’t have a choice.”