Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The conflict between Palestinian and Israeli fighter groups has expanded. This time Hamas received support from Lebanon’s ruling armed group, Hezbollah, which ultimately encouraged Tel Aviv to join in attacking its neighbor to the north.

On Lebanon’s border with Israel, residents of a Christian village called Rmeich hope war can be avoided even as they prepare for its possibility. The village itself is only a few kilometers from the border.

Half of its residents have fled to the North since shells started hitting the nearby hills. With the disruption of the olive harvest, residents’ livelihoods have also been affected by the heaviest conflict between Hezbollah and Israel since 2006.

Those who remain in Rmeich appear reluctant to discuss the political crisis that has brought the conflict to their doorstep, and seek to maintain normalcy in a village whose 18th-century church still holds mass three times a day.

“I’m not saying we feel safe but the situation is stable,” village priest Toni Elias told AFP ReutersThursday (2/11/2023), when a military drone flew overhead

“If we don’t hear a sound drones, we thought something strange was going on. We’re used to hearing it every day, 24 hours a day.”

Rmeich is one of a dozen or so Christian villages near the border with Israel in predominantly Shiite Muslim South Lebanon. During the 2006 war, around 25,000 people from surrounding towns sought refuge in Rmeich.

Memories of the 2006 conflict still haunt us. Local resident Rmeich and a charity have set up a makeshift hospital at a school, in case clashes between Hezbollah and Israel get worse.

“We will not use it unless there is a war and the roads are closed, and God willing this will not happen,” said Georges Madi, a doctor from the village.

These tensions are weighing on the local economy. The conflict adds to difficulties for a society still suffering from the effects of Lebanon’s financial collapse four years ago.

Although farmers have been able to harvest this year’s crop, they are worried about whether they will be able to plant it next year. Moreover, business in Rmeich generally came to a standstill.

“If the war drags on, we can’t stay here. There’s no work or money,” said Charbel Al Alam, who earns a living from tobacco farming.

“In the 2006 war, the tobacco crops in the fields dried up and no one could harvest them. No one compensated us.”

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(luc/luc)