New Delhi, March 20 -- Gila Pahima returned to her hometown of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel last spring, 18 months after its population had been evacuated because of Hezbollah rocket fire. Now air raid sirens are again sounding around the clock as the boom of missiles and interceptors echoes overhead.

"I feel like we're in constant war," she said. "You feel like you're on a battlefield all day."

Israel seemed to have decimated the Iran-backed Hezbollah when their last war ended with a ceasefire in November 2024. Hezbollah's top leader was dead, hundreds of its members had been maimed by booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies, and much of southern Lebanon was in ruins.

But Hezbollah resumed its rocket fire days after Israel and the...