Despite widespread damage, farmers in northern Israel say they 'don't let fear' win

UPPER GALILEE -- Ever since he became old enough to join the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at 18 years old, Lior Shelef said he's kept a gun and a rifle in his home. There's also a bomb shelter nearby – like other houses near the Israel-Lebanon border, Shelef said, noting that it's made of steel-reinforced concrete to protect against shelling.

Growing up in northern Israel's agricultural Hula Valley, Shelef said this was his reality. Years later, when the sonic booms of rockets ring out through his community of Kibbutz Snir, he said he remains determined to protect the land.

"We don't let fear run our day-to-day life because this is the life we chose for ourselves, and we're here to stay," Shelef told ABC News.

Shelef is one of many farmers from the north continuing to grow produce amid cross-border attacks – most recently over the weekend, when Israel and Hezbollah exchanged rocket and drone salvos – and heightened fears of a wider war in the Middle East. While many risk their safety and grapple with the emotional toll of the war, they also face a number of additional challenges: labor shortages, delayed harvests, and financial stress.

On Oct. 7, Hamas launched a surprise terror attack on Israel, igniting the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Large swaths of land in northern Israel have been scorched by fires caused by rocket attacks from Lebanon by Hezbollah, who said they are striking Israel in solidarity with Palestinians.

A recent Israeli National Public Diplomacy Agency report provided to ABC News found that between Oct. 9, 2023 and Aug. 6, 2024, Hezbollah launched 187 drones and more than 7,500 rockets toward Israel. In the Golan Heights, more than 2,400 acres of pasture burned, according to the report. In the Upper Galilee – a region where about 40% of Israel's deciduous and subtropical fruit grows – about 11,478 acres of land have burned, according to the report, which further notes that more than 60,000 people have been displaced from northern Israel by the attacks.

Shelef, 48, oversees a 6,500-acre cattle ranch, along with about 300 acres of avocado orchards owned by the Kibbutz Snir. He said he helps raise about 2,000 cows and the same number of chickens to sell meat.

Shelef calls avocados, the primary source of income for the kibbutz, "green gold." For a long time, he said, it wasn't safe to visit the Kibbutz Snir orchards to pick fruit. While the kibbutz once had some 20 workers in the avocado orchards, Shelef said now there are only five. Yet he refuses to cede the land due to the ongoing violence.

"It's not just if I'm earning enough money for my agricultural kibbutz. I'm sitting here on the Lebanese border because my parents came here and built this farm to hold the land in Israeli hands," Shelef said. "I will hold this ranch, even if I lose money, because it's a part of Israel. It's a part of who we are."

Ofer Moskovitz, 59, shares that sentiment. He said part of the avocado orchard owned by Kibbutz Misgav Am burned after an attack. While he and his family evacuated because of the war, Moskovitz still drives back to the fields near his kibbutz, less than a mile from the Israel-Lebanon border.

"It's a living place. A living orchard. Living fields. I'm not going to kill this place, so I'm going to carry on working there," Moskovitz told ABC News.

The drive to the orchard is dangerous for Moskovitz, who said he asks the IDF for permission the day before he leaves. Still, Moskovitz called his kibbutz "the best place to live." He described its beauty throughout the seasons: the snowcapped mountain peaks of Mount Hermon, sunflowers, and the animals he sees there, including cranes, eagles and pelicans.

"I'm feeling the sound of the birds and the smell of the trees, the feeling of walking in the orchard, the sound of the leaves – it's everything for the soul," Moskovitz said.

The IDF called up Shelef, a reservist, to join the Kibbutz Snir security team and protect the area's agriculture. Shelef said he's tasked with making olive oil, hand-picking avocados, and caring for the cattle.

"That's a part of making sure that we will still have a home when this war ends – whenever that is," Shelef said.

For all their grit, Shelef's uncertainty is shared by farmers and many others across the country, said Michael Noy, who for years worked as chief adviser for subtropical fruit trees in the extension service of Israel's Ministry of Agriculture. Since retired, he now works part-time as an adviser for avocado and lychee growers in the Upper Galilee, adjacent to the northern Hula Valley.

"The rockets are sparking fires. If there's fires, then the trees are destroyed. If you don't pick at the right time, you don't get the right amount of money you should get," Noy told ABC News, adding that the size of a fruit is also a measure of its quality.

"If you don't give enough water, if you don't give enough fertilizer, then instead of having a fruit of, let's say, 250 grams per each fruit, you will have maybe 180. You receive less money," he explained.

Additionally, with fewer people to pick fruit, farmers are often forced to harvest later than when is optimal, which causes further problems.

"If you, for example, need to pick the fruit between September and November, and there's not enough workers, you find yourself picking in January or December. Next year, those trees will not bear fruit," Noy said.

Liron Amdur is a researcher at Tel Aviv University and teaches agricultural economics at Tel-Hai College, in northern Israel. She said Israel's agricultural land, which covers about 15% of the country's total area, is centered around the northern and southern borders, with the Israeli National Public Diplomacy Agency report further noting that "about one third of Israel's agricultural lands are located in the Upper Galilee and the Ma'ale Yosef area" – the region that is currently under attack. That makes food security a concern, according to Amdur.

"We are very, very good at producing a lot of produce from this very small farmland. But it's not all what we consume," Amdur told ABC News.

Israel imports about 80% of the food it consumes, according to a policy paper Amdur published in July 2020. She also worries that the ongoing war could prompt other countries to follow Turkey's recent example and suspend trade with Israel, including food imports.

"We survived this way for many, many years. But with this war, with these conflicts with other countries … it's getting more and more problematic to depend so heavily on food imports," she said.

Eliezer Zusya is a shepherd who lives about 20 kilometers from the northern border, near Safed, in Upper Galilee, where he said he's surrounded by streams of water, as well as pomegranate, olive and fig trees. When he herds his sheep in fields there, he often ducks at the sound of rocket fire. Even so, Zusya said he intends to remain in the north.

"It's the land of my soul," Zusya told ABC News. "You don't leave your mother. You don't leave your kids. You don't leave your baby. In Israel, it's like God's child."

Yet staying there is difficult. Zusya said when the Israeli army rolled in with tanks, dug dirt hills and set up portable toilets, much of the grassy fields where he used to take his sheep to graze turned to mud. Zusya said he now has to buy more food for his animals. Many sheep, he said, also miscarried from stress, including the constant artillery barrages.

In Kibbutz Snir, Lior Shelef also expressed concern about the reproductive success of the animals, which are rattled by rocket fire. He added that the community doesn't plan to sell much hay this year because with bushfires caused by the attacks, they don't know if they will have enough food for their cows and so must keep more of the hay for themselves. Yet Shelef said he hopes his family can return to the kibbutz, where farming "runs in the veins."

"This is our way of life," Shelef said. "Like the olive tree, we have roots that go down in the ground for thousands of years."

Ofer Moskovitz also hopes to return to Kibbutz Misgav Am, where he raised his three daughters, though he worries that many young families will be too scared to return to the north.

"I don’t want people to be afraid to live at home, to live in the kibbutzim. I’ll be there," Moskovitz said, adding that there's reason to be hopeful for the future.

"In two or three years, the Galilee will be different, but will be better," he said. "Maybe we're different people. New people will come to help. New families will come to live, and everything will be okay."

ABC News' Jordana Miller contributed to this report.