Erasing ‘Any Sign of Life,’ Israeli Demolition Teams Razing Entire Villages in Lebanon

As the death toll from Israel’s 13-month assault on Lebanon passed 3,000, satellite imagery analyses published by multiple media outlets in recent days revealed that nearly a quarter of all buildings in 25 municipalities in the southern part of the Mideastern country have been destroyed or damaged in a ferocious campaign that has left entire villages in ruins.

Satellite photos examined by The Washington Post, Reuters, and the Financial Times showed vast destruction caused by Israeli bombing and controlled demolitions of towns and villages, many of whose residents are among the more than 1.2 million people forcibly displaced by the war.

“There are beautiful old homes, hundreds of years old,” Meiss al-Jabal Mayor Abdulmonem Choukeir told Reuters. “Thousands of artillery shells have hit the town, hundreds of air strikes. Who knows what will still be standing at the end?”