Israel faces continued challenges in the north from Hezbollah. IDF Chief of Staff Halevi met with commanders of the 91st division in the north on Sunday. “We need to return to a different situation, and return to both safety and a sense of security. There is a military way to do this, the beginning of which is also what you are doing here, to damage, to deter, to kill Hezbollah operatives, to demonstrate our superiority, and it can also come in the form of a strike and war, and it may be that over time this will also take other time periods and solutions, because we are focused on other things between the arenas,” he said. He noted that Israel doesn’t think war is the first solution, but pointed to Gaza as an example of what conflict could bring to Lebanon. This has been a common refrain among Israel’s leadership, to warn Lebanon that escalation can lead to a similar style conflict in Lebanon.

The IDF said on Monday that warplanes struck a Hezbollah military site in responses to rocket launches targeting communities in the Galilee. In the evening, Hezbollah fired anti-tank missiles toward the area of Metulla in northern Israel. The IDF said that “no injuries were reported. IDF artillery is striking the sources of the fire.”

The contrast between the north and the south is clear on the ground. I drove to the border of northern Israel on December 9 along roads that have been threatened by rocket fire. The hills have been blackened by fires from previous rocket and mortar impacts, and the area close to the border felt deserted by civilians. In the south on the Gaza border, by contrast, roads are now beginning to fill with more traffic in recent weeks as the IDF operation enables more major roads near the border to be used for civilian traffic.