Devastated winery on the border with Lebanon remains a sign of the destruction in wake of the Hezbollah war

(JNS) - Hundreds of thousands of shattered and fire-damaged wine bottles, some with wine remnants, line the floor of a once-thriving winery in Moshav Avivim, a picturesque community on Israel's border with Lebanon.

The tableau of devastation at the former winery in this deserted Israeli village in the Upper Galilee just down the hill from Lebanon has remained frozen in time since four Hezbollah missiles demolished the site last year in multiple attacks and with it some 300,000 bottles of wine.

With a shaky Hezbollah ceasefire in place since late November, the Israeli government has said that residents of border communities should be able to move back home by the end of the month. However, uncertainty and concern over a future war with the Lebanese terror group is omnipresent and hangs like winter mist in the mountain air.

An Israeli military pullback from Lebanon less than a mile away-apart from five border points-due by Tuesday is only adding to the fears of residents that Hezbollah will eventually find its way back to the border villages where they looked down on Israel. There, the terrorists dug tunnels similar to the ones made by Hamas on Israel's southern border that facilitated the massacre of 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023.

"What will we come back to next month?" ponders former winery manager Meir Biton, 47, on Sunday as he walks through the rubble of his family's demolished business which went up in flames during the year-long war with Hezbollah and is reminiscent of some of the worst destruction of homes near the Gaza border during the Oct. 7 onslaught. "Nobody has the answers yet."

"Everything remains as it was," concurs his brother Yisrael Biton, 38, as he plucks up a dirtied but unbroken bottle of wine from the immense destruction at the site.

Picking up the pieces

As village members trickle back to their homes to inspect the damage, there remains, through it all, a spirit of resilience to rebuild and start anew despite all the odds and their inauspicious geographic location.

This small border community was originally established by Moroccan immigrants in 1958, including the Bitons' parents, who settled there in 1963.

Three decades ago, their father Shlomo built the winery, which was adorned with Moroccan-style touches, in the backyard of their home; it served both as a source of tourism for visitors in and around this village of some 500 people and a source of pride for the accolades it picked up.

The day after the Hamas attack on southern Israel, this northern moshav, along with scores of others, was evacuated by order of the Israeli military, due to security concerns over Hezbollah attacks which speedily materialized. To date, tens of thousands of residents remain displaced.

"A day didn't go by without attacks here," Meir recalled, noting that he and his brother would come back on some nights to check on the winery despite the security risks.

With the Lebanese village of Maroun El Ras, which served as a Hezbollah stronghold less than a mile from their homes, there was no advance warning of incoming rocket or missile attacks like in other towns and villages further inland. "First, there would be a shriek and an explosion, and then seconds later the alarm would go off," he said.

During one such nocturnal visit last March, with his family evacuated to Tiberias further south, Meir was knocked unconscious when two missiles struck the winery setting it ablaze. As soon as he got back on his feet, he grabbed a garden hose from his parent's home and tried in vain to put out the flames that were devouring the winery.

An endless sea of shattered bottles alongside blackened wine barrels litters the structure, which caved in during the inferno. Overturned, fire-damaged reception tables are the sole remnants of what was once the visitors' center. A blackened sign at the entrance reads "Welcome to the Avivim Winery."

Meir estimates that it will cost $10 million to rebuild the winery and several years to replant their nearby vineyard, which must be uprooted due to a virus that ravaged the unattended grapes as the war raged. 

An Israeli company, My Tree in Israel, recently launched a campaign in the United States to help the winery with funding for the rebuilding. It aims to sell some of the thousands of bottles of wine that the winery managed to save.

While his wife is afraid to return home, Meir's 18-year-old son, Itai, who is about to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces in an elite combat unit, said that he is determined to help rebuild his family's legacy together with his father when he completes his three-year military service. Convincing his wife to return, Biton said, is still a work in progress. 

"I am coming back, though I fear things will not be OK again in the future, but I have hopes in Trump in changing the Middle East," he said of the U.S. leader.

Two weeks before the ceasefire went into effect a rocket slammed into the lemon tree in the courtyard of the winery, which, though blackened in parts, like the residents, remains defiant, standing.