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Hezbollah's neighbors: Israeli border community under constant attack from terror group
Six months after Yulia Bar-Dan and her family fled their home on a kibbutz in northern Israel fearing a possible Hezbollah assault following the horrendous Hamas attack of Oct. 7, she returned to gather what she could from a lifetime of memories she’d left behind.
One hour was all she had. “We were given a chance, under the cover of darkness, to return home for the first time,” she told Fox News Digital. “I cried the whole time.”
When she arrived, Kibbutz Manara, once home to close to 300 people, looked like a war zone. “We heard explosions above us and hurried to our house – the one closest to the Lebanese border. There was no electricity, and we couldn’t open the windows,” she said.
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A soldier walks amid the rubble of a house damaged in a strike by Hezbollah terrorists in Kibbutz Manara, in northern Israel near the Lebanon border, on Nov. 27, 2023. (Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images)
With a flashlight in hand, she went room to room, gathering as much as she could in a large trash bag. The family of five is now living in a single room and there’s not much space for extras. “My daughter wanted her dollhouse, but I couldn’t bring it. The happiest moment was finding our cat alive. Seeing him brought real joy to the kids,” she says.
Not long after she collected her belongings and left the kibbutz, a Hezbollah missile hit her house. The strike added her home to the staggering 75% of kibbutz structures in the north that have been damaged by Hezbollah’s relentless bombardments.
Since Hezbollah joined the war as a “support front” for Hamas on Oct. 8, over 7,500 rockets have been fired from Lebanon into Israel, and more than 200 drones have crossed the border. The toll: 44 people have been killed, 271 wounded and 62,000 evacuated from dozens of communities in northern Israel. Those who have left have no idea when – or even if – they will ever return. The damage to agriculture and tourism has reached billions of dollars, and there is widespread fear that this conflict will escalate further.
With Lebanon in the background, Yulia Bar-Dan and her husband Nadav during quieter times at Kibbutz Manara. (Yulia Bar-Dan)
The decision to evacuate most northern communities immediately after Oct. 7 didn’t come from the government, which was slow to respond. It came from the residents themselves. “It’s sheer luck that Hezbollah’s Radwan forces didn’t join Hamas in the massacre; if they had, nothing would have stopped them,” says Yochai Wolfin, the community director of Kibbutz Manara. “We are right on the border and at high risk. We’ve known for at least 10 years that Hezbollah’s Radwan forces have a plan they’ve been training to invade the Galilee, seize multiple communities and do here exactly what we saw happen in the south.”
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A picture taken from Kibbutz Manara on Dec. 20, 2020, shows a Lebanese man holding a Hezbollah flag in the southern Lebanese village of Hula. (Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images)
Naor Shamia, who has lived with his wife and three children on Kibbutz Manara since 2011, doesn’t sugarcoat the response of people living near the northern border following Oct. 7. “We ran away. We were terrified they would slaughter us, just like they did in the Gaza envelope,” he recalled.
Since Oct. 7, Shamia, who typically would spend his days teaching math and physics, has been focused on leading the kibbutz’s rapid response unit – a band of community members with combat experience – which has been tasked with defending against terrorist infiltrations, rocket fire and even wildfires ignited by hot shrapnel or missile impacts. “Much of Kibbutz Manara is visible from Lebanon, which makes our situation even more challenging,” Shamia says. “You can walk through parts of the kibbutz and be fully exposed to Hezbollah.”
A house in the kibbutz damaged by Hezbollah rockets. (Kibbutz Manara Rapid Response unit)
In December, when members of the rapid response unit rushed to a blaze that had been sparked by an anti-tank missile, Hezbollah fired three more missiles, injuring two members of the unit. “Manara sits on a high ridge, making us an easy target for anti-tank missiles,” Shamia says. “We’re exposed.”
Established in 1943, the kibbutz economy has been primarily based on agriculture, including a famous vineyard, cherry and apple orchards, and poultry farming. Today, much of that has been destroyed by Hezbollah’s rockets. The vineyard was burned and the orchards, located in frequently targeted areas, were abandoned.
An aluminum business, which Yulia’s husband, Nadav, ran, was also destroyed by a missile strike. Since then, he has been serving with the rapid response unit, while Bar-Dan and their three children live in a single room on a kibbutz in the north but away from the border.
This photo taken from a position in northern Israel shows a Hezbollah UAV intercepted by Israeli air forces over northern Israel on Aug. 25, 2024. (Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images)
“There’s no official declaration of war here, but we’re living as if there is a war, constantly bombarded by drones and missiles,” she says. “The children go to school, but they spent two hours in a shelter today because of missile fire. People might ask, ‘Why don’t you move somewhere else?’ But this is our home. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
She continued, “What would happen if she and others pulled up roots and abandoned the northernmost regions of Israel? Manara is on the border. If we’re not there, who will be? We have to come back.”
Terrorists from Hezbollah carry out a training exercise in southern Lebanon in May 2023. (AP/Hassan Ammar)
She says she hopes for the day when the government comes to understand what’s at stake “and does what’s necessary to change the situation in the north. While the world’s attention is focused elsewhere,” adding, “the war between Israel and Hezbollah has left northern Israel in a state of devastation.”
Robert Carradine, the youngest of his prolific Hollywood family and whose biggest hit was the 1984 comedy “Revenge of the Nerds,” has died at 71.
In a Tuesday statement to news outlets, his family said he lived with bipolar disorder for two decades and died by suicide.
“We want people to know it, and there is no shame in it,” his brother Keith Carradine told Deadline. “It is an illness that got the best of him, and I want to celebrate him for his struggle with it, and celebrate his beautiful soul. He was profoundly gifted, and we will miss him every day.”
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.
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Known for both his film and television work, Robert Carradine worked steadily in the industry for over 40 years. Though he collaborated with some of the most respected directors of the day, he never gained the worldwide recognition of his more famous siblings Keith Carradine (also the father of Martha Plimpton) and half-brother David Carradine, who died in 2009.
Robert Carradine, a Los Angeles native and son to character actor John Carradine, was introduced to audiences with roles on the television series “Bonanza” in 1971 and in the John Wayne Western “The Cowboys” in 1972.
Despite his family background, acting wasn’t his first calling, though.
“I always had a passion to be a race car driver, and that’s what I thought I was going to do, and at some penultimate moment … I think I was sitting with my brother David when ‘The Cowboys’ was being cast, and they were interested in David as the bad guy, and he didn’t want to be the guy that shot John Wayne in the back,” Carradine recalled in a 2013 interview with Popdose. “But he said, ‘You know, it is called The Cowboys, and they’re meeting all these young guys. Why don’t you go in?’”
In addition to starring in a short-lived television spinoff of “The Cowboys,” and appearing alongside David Carradine in his popular ABC series “Kung Fu,” he would go on to nab roles in Martin Scorsese’s “Mean Streets,” Hal Ashby’s Vietnam drama “Coming Home,” and Samuel Fuller’s World War II film “The Big Red One.”
The heights of his brother David’s success eluded Robert Carradine, but the two could often be seen in the same projects, including in Walter Hill’s “The Long Riders” and Paul Bartel’s “Cannonball.”
Robert Carradine’s biggest hit would come in 1984 with the off-color comedy “Revenge of the Nerds,” in which he played head nerd Lewis Skolnick, with his abrupt, infectious and guttural laugh. He reprised the role for the big-screen sequel and two made-for-television follow-ups, and continued to pay homage to the beloved character with a guest role on the series “Robot Chicken” and as a co-host (with “Revenge of the Nerds” co-star Curtis Armstrong) of the pop culture competition show “King of the Nerds,” which aired for three seasons.
In the 2000s, Carradine gained small-screen success in The Disney Channel’s “Lizzie McGuire” as the eponymous character’s father.
“It’s really hard to face this reality about an old friend,” Hilary Duff, who played Lizzie McGuire, wrote on Instagram. “There was so much warmth in the McGuire family and I always felt so cared for by my on-screen parents. I’ll be forever grateful for that. I’m deeply sad to learn Bobby was suffering.”
Work remained consistent even if the projects diminished in prestige and quality. Then Quentin Tarantino, ever the champion of fading character actors, cast Carradine in “Django Unchained” as one of the trackers in the 2012 film after seeing a “very furry” photograph, as Carradine told Popdose.
In 2015, Carradine was cited for a Colorado crash that injured him and his wife, Edith. They later divorced, after more than 25 years of marriage.
Carradine’s survivors include his three children, actor Ever Carradine, Marika Reed Carradine and Ian Alexander Carradine.
“Whenever anyone asks me how I turned out so normal, I always tell them it’s because of my dad. I knew my dad loved me, I knew it deep in my bones, and I always knew he had my back,” Ever Carradine wrote on Instagram. “I think it’s partly because we basically grew up together. Twenty years age difference really isn’t that much, and while I never ever thought of him as a sibling, I did always think of him as my partner. We were in it together.”
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A new study aims to jolt Israel’s security and technology establishment into embracing a new post-Oct. 7, 2023, business model that will advance the U.S.-Israel strategic partnership in the heart of the Middle East and across the globe.
The Henry Jackson Society study titled “Israel 2048: A Blueprint for a Rising Asymmetric Geopolitical Power” jumps into the future, with a view toward advancing American and Israeli security interests.
Co-author of the report, Barak M. Seener, told Fox News Digital that America requires Israel for “its security architecture in the region via the Abraham Accords and, more broadly, will be a force multiplier regarding the technological edge against China.”
During President Donald Trump’s first term, his administration sealed diplomatic normalization deals between Sunni Gulf and North African countries: Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Sudan and Israel.
Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept missiles over Tel Aviv, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Seener and co-author David Wurmser argue that there is a pressing need to reframe the U.S.–Israel strategic partnership “around technology,” and “shift from military aid dependency towards joint R&D and investment in shared technological platforms in defence-tech, AI, quantum computing and next generational warfare capabilities.”
They wrote, “Israel must prioritize passing negotiated regulations for technology sharing to prevent AI/ quantum technology leakage to China.”
Seener noted that the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy (released in January) describes Israel as a strategic military partner. “That has never happened before.”
He continued, “Israel is not only achieving regional dominance but international power by connecting trade routes and digital connectivity. Israel simply cannot remain in a purely defensive posture and hunker down and react to threats on its borders.”
President Donald Trump bids farewell to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he leaves the White House after a meeting on April 7, 2025. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Seener said following Israel’s successful air war campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran in June 2025, “America now wants to be part of this success story. “
He argues that President Donald Trump entered on the side of Israel with military attacks because “Israel demonstrated intelligence acumen and military prowess. For the first time, America joined Israel” in the prosecution of a war.
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Consequently, Seener said Israel’s “defense technology makes it indispensable for nations.”
Seener and Wurmser’s 51-page study contains granular information on how the U.S. can strengthen American security and recommend embedding “Israel as a defense-tech and deep-tech power that is indispensable to Western security and global technological competition in supply chains for AI, semiconductors, missile defense, cyber capabilities and critical materials. Israel’s technological dominance must be leveraged to anchor alliances and shape global supply chains.”
This photo taken from a position in northern Israel shows an Israeli Air Force fighter jet firing flares as it flies to intercept a hostile aircraft over the border area with south Lebanon on Aug. 25, 2024. (Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images)
The wobbliness of America’s European partners is also highlighted to show the need for Israel to “Accelerate domestic lines of production of critical military systems, munitions and energy infrastructure to reduce vulnerability to foreign political pressure such as Europe’s growing ambivalence, coupled with episodic constraints on arms transfers,” according to the authors.
Earlier this month, Britain’s left-leaning government reportedly denied the U.S. military’s use of British bases to strike Iran.
Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, recently visited Israel as the official guest of Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, chief of the general staff. (IDF Spokesman’s Unit.)
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Israel is uniquely positioned to help regenerate relations among Western powers, the study notes. According to the authors, there is an opportunity to “use Israel’s defense-tech, quantum computing, AI and cyber capabilities as a tool of statecraft to deepen alliances, deter political isolation and strengthen influence in Europe, the Gulf and Asia.”
Seener said, “Israel is not a superpower but a geopolitical power that gives nations a force multiplier, and they benefit from Israel as a tech defense nation.”
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British politician Peter Mandelson has been released on bail after detectives questioned him for hours over the alleged leaking of sensitive government information to the late convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, while a government minister in the early 2000s.
The former United Kingdom ambassador to Washington was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office on Tuesday. His arrest followed the detention of Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was also questioned over similar misconduct linked to Epstein.
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The Epstein revelations have triggered investigations and resignations in Europe, but the fallout has been muted in the United States.
How have the Epstein files affected British politics?
The developments mark one of the sharpest reversals in recent British political life. Only months ago, Mandelson held one of the most senior (and coveted) diplomatic roles in the country.
He has since lost his post, faced a police raid at his home and now confronts the possibility of criminal charges. He has been forced to step down from the House of Lords, the unelected upper chamber of the UK parliament, and could be stripped of his title.
If convicted, he could face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s decision to appoint Mandelson as British ambassador – a move made while his popularity has plunged – triggered the resignation of his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and has raised questions about whether he can see out his term.
The scandal has also engulfed the royal family. After Andrew was arrested for leaking sensitive reports during his time as British trade envoy – the first arrest of a senior royal in centuries – King Charles III said “the law must take its course.”
British royal biographer Andrew Lownie, who interviewed the late Virginia Giuffre – who accused Epstein of forcing her to have sex with Prince Andrew three times when she was 17 – has warned that the fallout could also “bring down King Charles”, as scrutiny intensifies over what he knew about his brother’s conduct.
The cases form part of a broader European response to newly released troves of Epstein-related documents from the US.
Across the continent, authorities have opened investigations, and several public figures have stepped down or lost positions.
What’s happened in Europe?
France has also moved. Former Culture Minister Jack Lang resigned from his role leading a Paris cultural institution after the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs sought to question him over contacts with Epstein.
In Norway, former Prime Minister Thorbjorn Jagland has been charged with “gross corruption” following disclosures that he stayed at Epstein’s properties in New York and Florida and visited his private island, as well as having the late sex offender cover his expenses and those of his family. He faces up to a decade in prison if convicted.
Norway’s ambassador to Jordan, Mona Juul, also resigned after reports that Epstein left $10m to her children in his will.
Meanwhile, Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway apologised after documents showed she had holidayed at one of Epstein’s properties.
In Slovakia, national security adviser Miroslav Lajcak stepped down after disclosures about his association with Epstein surfaced. Prime Minister Robert Fico confirmed he accepted the resignation.
For many in Europe, simply appearing in the files has triggered public scrutiny, investigations or resignations.
Governments have treated the document releases as grounds for formal inquiry, even when criminal liability remains unclear.
Why has there been less of a fallout in the United States?
In the US, public anger has simmered for years. Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massie have led a bipartisan effort to release the files, using the term “Epstein class” to describe a wealthy elite who believe themselves to be above the law.
Yet criminal accountability beyond Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell has remained limited. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking offences.
FBI documents identify eight alleged co-conspirators, including the former CEO of Victoria’s Secret, Lex Wexner, Epstein’s former secretary Lesley Groff and modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who died in custody in France.
None, apart from Maxwell, has faced a US criminal conviction in connection with Epstein’s trafficking case.
The lack of accountability has spanned Democratic and Republican presidents.
Epstein first avoided federal prosecution in 2007-08 through a controversial non-prosecution agreement reached during the administration of George W Bush.
Subsequent administrations under Barack Obama, Donald Trump’s first terms and Joe Biden did not bring sweeping new prosecutions tied to the broader network named in the files.
There is no sign that any prosecutions are under way, despite Congress forcing Trump to release the files.
Who has been affected in the US?
Several prominent Americans have stepped back from roles or faced reputational damage.
Former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers took leave from academic duties at Harvard University after scrutiny over his ties to Epstein.
Lawyer Brad Karp resigned as chair of the law firm Paul Weiss. The National Football League said it would review correspondence between Epstein and New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch.
Longevity specialist and high-profile physician Peter Attia issued an apology and resigned from his role as chief science officer at David Protein over emails exchanged with Epstein. He also stepped down as a CBS News contributor.
Others named in communications with Epstein have not faced formal charges.
Among them are former White House strategist Steve Bannon, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and technology billionaire Elon Musk, who has said he never visited Epstein’s island despite discussing the possibility in emails.
Former President Bill Clinton has testified before Congress regarding his friendship with Epstein.
Trump, who also knew Epstein for years and appears thousands of times in the released documents, has denied wrongdoing, as has the White House.
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