CRI听力:Israel Keeps Alert on Security in Northern Borders

Despite that the situation in Israel's northern borders seems back to calm, Israelis are still keeping alert on the security in the area.

Israel's northern borders with Syria and Lebanon have experienced a lot of tensions in recent days.

On Tuesday, two rockets fired by Lebanon's Shiite movement Hezbollah from Syria hit the Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan Heights.

One day later, two Israeli soldiers and a Spanish peacekeeper were killed in an exchange of fire between Hezbollah and Israel at the Israel-Lebanon frontier.

Hassan Safadi, a Druze resident of Majdal Shams village on the Golan Heights, says the situation affected their lives a lot.

"Of course it caused a big fear to the residents in the village. We are in a hot point, so we know whatever chaos going to happen we might suffer, we might be part of it. With all what's happening you cannot say I'm safe."

In a televised speech on Friday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said that Wednesday's attack was a response to an alleged Israeli air strike in Syria that killed twelve Hezbollah and Iranian operatives, including an Iranian general.

Nasrallah warned that Hezbollah "cannot be deterred" and that any Israeli action against it would not be unpunished.

However, it seems that currently neither side wants to escalate the situation. Israel confirmed on Thursday that it received a message from Hezbollah through a UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon that it was not interested in further escalation.

Israeli former Financial Minister Yair Lapid says right now no one has an interest of inflaming the situation.

"I think there is an understanding that this is the wrong time for everybody. Hezbollah itself is preoccupied in three other arenas, in Iraq, in Syria and within Lebanon, and I don't think they have the interest in getting involved in a conflict here."

Israeli reserve colonel Kobi Marom agrees that the last thing the Iranian-backed Hezbollah wants is to escalate with Israel and open a new front along the Lebanese border.

"If they escalate here, they are going to give Israel a great opportunity to attack their missile site, so the Iranians who control everything, they want to keep this border out of the game."

As a tense calm took hold, Israeli soldiers remained on alert and maintained a high presence across the north on Friday. Marom says that the long-term exchange of blows is still expected.

"If we want to keep an effective deterrence along this border, we must retell it's unacceptable that on Israeli territory they attack an Israeli target. We have to wait and see if Israel is going to do something, but there is no question that the challenges with Hezbollah is going to keep being on the way, I mean the conveys which they will try to cross the border from Syria to Lebanon. And I think it's just a question of time that the Iranian regime will try to rebuild the terror infrastructure in the northern part of the Golan Heights."

And for Jews living near the border, it will also be a long-term struggle.

"Many people in Israel all the time say, our grandchildren will not go to the army. Sometimes we dream about this, but for us, we are sorry it will not happen, because Israel lives here in the area with Arabs all over, we must fight for our land, we must fight for our life."