A year on from covering the first weeks of the war on the ground, Nine Europe correspondent Edward Godfrey and cameraman Nick Marsay travelled to Lebanon and Gaza border communities as well as central Israel and the West Bank.
The towns just inside Israel’s border with Lebanon are eerily quiet.
Almost everyone is gone. Some left months ago, evacuated by the military.
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Others more recently when the area became even more dangerous.
The frontline of the new ground battle is close.
For some communities, it’s just hundreds of metres away, across the border.
There are few people here. Shops are closed. The streets are deserted.
The silence makes it easy to hear the rumble of machine guns in the distance and the booms from tanks and jets.
In some places, you can clearly see neighbouring villages inside Lebanon.
The residents there have also left – driven out by this deadly clash between Israeli troops and Hezbollah.
Qiryat Shemona is about a kilometre from the border.
It’s as far north as you can go.
The IDF has blocked access any further because the final, short stretch of road becomes flanked by Lebanon on three sides.
Rocket fire by Hezbollah is frequent and accurate.
The only people we see here are soldiers, except for one.
A man on the street, washing his car. An innocuous display of defiance.
He greets us with an untrusting look, but warms when we explain who we are.
I ask him – David is his name – why he’s still here.
“It’s my home, I’ll never leave”, he tells me.
He then says something in Hebrew, which translates roughly to “a man’s home is his castle”.
I tell him we have this saying in Australia, and we even have a movie about it. He smiles.
David shows me where a Hezbollah rocket landed on his property some time ago, just as there’s an enormous boom from somewhere down the street.
It’s an Israeli tank firing over the hill at a target in southern Lebanon.
My heart skips a beat. You get used to it, but sometimes it catches you out.
As we drive west, hugging the border, we spot large dust clouds ahead.
The fleet of tanks we saw in a paddock earlier, is now snaking up the mountain at speed, towards the front line.
We pull over to film for our report, when one, then two, then a car-full of soldiers rush up to us and intervene.
They’re concerned about Hezbollah knowing their movements.
I explain it’s in plain view from the road and that the pictures won’t be broadcast for hours, but the soldier in charge isn’t having it.
By the time this non-negotiation is over, the tanks have disappeared over the top.
Sirens sound, rockets fall
The tension here is palpable.
Israel and Hezbollah – and other actors in the region – exchange fire constantly now.
Haifa is a picturesque port area in the north.
It’s Israel’s third-largest city and home to the country’s largest oil refinery as well as military sites, making it a key target.
The near-300,000 residents largely go about their lives as normal, but there’s an air of uneasiness.
Sirens sound at least twice a day here, forcing locals and us to take cover.
The Iron Dome – Israel’s hi-tech defence system – is extremely effective, but imperfect.
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Some rockets land in open spaces, others on homes.
At one housing block struck minutes prior, I find a giant hole in the roof, an apartment blown apart and water pouring into the corridors.
I also spot a piece of shrapnel from a rocket or an intercepting projectile.
It’s hard to know which.
Even when rockets are intercepted, often large, burning debris falls to the ground.
Piles of rubble stand where buildings once were
The damage from incoming fire is only a fraction of what’s occurring in Lebanon, including Beirut.
In parts of the capital, piles of rubble stand where buildings previously did.
Israeli forces say they’ve eliminated numerous senior Hezbollah figures in the past few weeks.
A major pivot and a new phase in this war, that began with the exploding communication devices and has been followed by relentless air strikes and a ground incursion.
There’s no question Israel has severely weakened Hezbollah’s leadership, but many innocent civilians are dying or are being injured in the crossfire. Even more are displaced.
The killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah – according to Iran’s leadership – as well as the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and other senior figures, prompted Iran to launch almost 200 ballistic missiles at Israel at the start of this month.
An attack of unprecedented scale, and twice that of its April launch.
Our flight was descending, only minutes away from touching down in Tel Aviv when the plane suddenly changed direction.
A message from the captain told passengers there was “a security situation in Tel Aviv” and we were diverting to Cyprus.
Murmurs in the cabin became groans.
On the tarmac, with a phone signal again, I learned what had happened.
Some passengers said they could see the missiles in the distance through their window.
Israel’s airspace was closed and every flight thereafter, cancelled.
My cameraman Nick Marsay and I would spend the next two days and nights at Larnaca Airport, desperately trying to get onto a rescheduled flight, along with hundreds of Israelis trying to get home for the Jewish New Year holiday.
A year on, I’m still shocked by the level of bombing
My team covers the war daily, but we’d returned to Israel because of recent escalations in the conflict, and also, to cover the one year anniversary of the October 7 attacks, when Hamas stormed southern communities, slaughtering more than 1200 Israelis and taking 251 hostages into Gaza.
Journalists are still prevented from accessing the strip.
Near the border, I’m shocked at the level of bombing and artillery fire still going on.
I’ve covered the war extensively since I was here last year, but to see it again with my own eyes, I’m stunned at how similar the intensity is, to the earliest days of the war.
There’s a renewed focus by the IDF in Gaza’s north.
I see much of it through a barbed wire fence in Kfar Aza, one of the worst affected kibbutzim along Gaza’s perimeter.
The thunderous pounding of targets just across the “no-man’s land” buffer, is met with tall plumes of smoke rising above the skyline.
It’s deeply saddening to know each thump could be an innocent man, woman or child’s last moment.
I think to myself, how are we still here? And, did anyone ever believe this conflict would go as far as it has?
I entered Kfar Aza on October 10 last year, only hours after Israeli troops wrestled back control from Hamas.
Bodies were everywhere and there was the unmistakable stench of death.
Dozens lay where they were killed – 64 Israelis were murdered.
The dead Hamas attackers lay with their faces uncovered.
A year on, as we walk around with a survivor named Ronit, who’s returned to stay in her home overnight for the first time, I see virtually nothing has changed.
The bodies are gone, but the homes are the same.
Many are smashed and burnt, some riddled with bullet holes and blood streaks still stain some of the doors.
Clothes and toys are exactly as they were left. There’s been no desire or opportunity yet to rebuild.
Only a handful have returned here to live.
I find the same home I sheltered in briefly last year, during a Hamas rocket attack.
They were frequent then. It’s largely untouched, except the body I had to crouch next to for a few minutes, is long gone.
There are photos and names of the victims displayed outside the houses now.
I learn this particular home belonged to a young man and woman.
The nearby town of Re’im will forevermore be linked with the Supernova Music Festival.
The images of Hamas paragliding into the desert dance party are some of the most haunting from that day.
This is where one of the main memorials is being held.
We arrive before dawn to a huge police presence and hundreds of mourners gathering.
Many are survivors and families of the victims.
Stakes with photographs of each of the 364 people murdered here have now been erected in the exact spot their bodies were found.
A young woman sits on the dirt at the base of one, sobbing quietly.
Her arms wrapped around her knees. I notice her sneakers appear to be blood-stained.
Flashes from huge explosions in Gaza light up the sky.
Every few moments there’s another boom that reverberates through your body.
A message in Hebrew on the loudspeaker says “there will be lots of artillery fire nearby, but not to worry”.
At 6.29am, the moment of the attack, the song that was playing, is played once again.
It’s now a surreal and chilling soundtrack to a dance party massacre. This is the first time some have returned.
Eden Bensimon tells me when he and his friends realised what was happening, they ran to their cars and sped away, before having to ditch it and run again.
He says when he woke the next day, he didn’t want to move or speak.
He was paralysed with numbness. It took two weeks for him to find out one of his friends didn’t make it out alive.
He fights back tears. The pain is still raw.
Many of those here, travelled from Tel Aviv.
It’s less than two hours north, in the country’s centre, but in many ways it feels like another world.
Despite the infrequent rocket alerts, shooting and stabbing attacks, and the weekly rallies for the 101 hostages still unaccounted for, people appear to be living their lives as normal as possible.
The roads are busy, shops and restaurants full.
Bars in this cosmopolitan centre are packed. Locals run along the coast and swim in the sea.
There’s the strangest feeling each night, when we return to Tel Aviv from the south and the north, where deadly war is raging.
At the plaza now referred to as Hostages Square, the beating of drums, loud chanting and flare smoke fills the air.
The thousands gathered are angry at Hamas and at the Israeli government.
As we enter, a motorcade with police sirens screaming, brings us to a halt for a moment.
It’s Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hostages Square is deliberately adjacent to the headquarters for Israel’s Defence Forces.
I speak with a woman named Ifat, whose cousin Ofer and his children Erez and Sahar were kidnapped on October 7.
It’s unknown if Ofer is still alive or will ever come home.
Erez and Sahar were released in last November’s temporary ceasefire exchange.
They told Ifat they saw her on TV, from inside a Hamas tunnel, pleading for their return.
Passions are equally strong inside the West Bank.
In the Palestinian-controlled city of Ramallah we film a march around the main square and surrounding streets.
Those taking part are also calling for an end to the war, but don’t believe Israel wants it.
They tell us they don’t support Hamas or Hezbollah, but in their chants, they call for more attacks, in order to achieve peace.
One says they’re thankful for Iran firing missiles days earlier. It’s another example of how complex the atmospherics in this region are.
Recent IDF operations inside the West Bank have increased tensions.
In Tulkarm, further north, an assault on a local Hamas leader – according to the IDF – claimed the lives of 18 people.
The day after we were in Ramallah, the IDF raided the nearby neighbourhood of Qalandiya, detaining up to 20 people.
It sparked a violent clash between local youths and soldiers, resulting in the shooting death of a 12-year-old boy.
But hatred is not everywhere
Despite all the violence and suffering, hatred isn’t everywhere.
Most people we’ve met in Israel and in the West Bank say they just want peace, but more than a year into this harrowing war it’s difficult to see how and when that will come.
What peace means for some, isn’t the same for everyone.
On this assignment, we aren’t permitted to enter Lebanon due to the risk and still to this day, the IDF doesn’t allow entry into Gaza except for very rare, escorted visits.
There are many brave people living in these places doing vital work in getting information out.
As this visit comes to an end for our team, Israel’s promised response to Iran looms large and could dictate the next steps in this conflict.
Benjamin Netanyahu calls this war “a fight for Israel’s survival”.
With all sides in this war so far refusing to turn down the volume and listen to repeated pleas for a ceasefire, millions of civilians across the region, caught in the middle, are fighting for their survival too.
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