Annihilating South Lebanon
: What we know so far about Ecocide and urban devastation

Autumn 2023.

That was when everything began. Two weeks after October 8, and following the first rounds of mutual shelling that started on that date, waves of forced displacement from the villages along Lebanon’s border strip intensified. The villages bled dry of their residents, and press reports documented thousands of displaced people every day. By the end of the year, dozens of Lebanese villages were deserted. And before the media began framing it as a “war,” more than 90,000 people had already been driven out of their homes and villages by the beginning of 2024, while Lebanese official institutions documented damage in 53 southern towns and villages that had been subjected to Israeli shelling.

Ruin spread, black as a cloud.

It wasn’t until autumn of 2024 that the media began framing events as war. However, from the humanitarian and environmental standpoints, what local and international media began describing as a war was, at the same time, a massive expansion in the scale of destruction that followed the first war, which had been considered less severe.

 In practice, what this meant was that the border villages of South Lebanon were no longer alone in their tragedy. The rest of the villages in the governorates of the South, Nabatieh, and the Bekaa joined them, before the war reached the heart of the capital, Beirut, and its suburbs, and touched all Lebanese territory. The cloud gradually widened: No longer a phantom haunting the edges, it had become a beast on the attack. Rockets and shells rained down from every direction. Yaroun, Deir Seryan, Maroun al-Ras, Aita al-Shaab, Blida, Mays al-Jabal, Houla, Khiam, and other villages were left on their own, without their people, to face the war and the attempts at forgetting. It was not possible for their names to be dropped from circulation, because land, wherever it faces colonialism, defends itself by itself, with its name, its history, and its memory.

On November 27, 2024, the ceasefire agreement entered into force. Residents returned and saw the destruction up close. During that specific period, and before the return of war and displacement on March 2 of the current year (2026), southerners counted the losses and pain they had endured. This report does not present everything, for the war continues, against the plains, the valleys, the rivers, the mountains, the trees, and all sources of life. And all we can count, up to this hour, is one part of the great ruin that stretches between October 8, 2023, and the final days before the renewed war in the winter of 2026.

White phosphorus: Fire in the soil

Upon contact with oxygen, white phosphorus ignites. It keeps eating into the skin until it reaches the bone. On October 16, according to Amnesty International, theIsraeli army launched an indiscriminate attack on the border village of Douhayra, after which nine people were taken to hospitals with cases of suffocation. A month later, thevillage of KfarKila saw the same scene, with the same weapon. White phosphorus seeks no specific target because, quite simply, and in the literal sense of the word, it burns everything.

It does not stop at killing innocent human beings. It leaves behind scorched soil poisoned with chemical particles that remain active after the bombardment, destroying vegetation cover, causing direct contamination of crops and water sources, accelerating soil erosion, and driving biodiversity into decline. As for the toxic smoke it releases, and the fires that follow it, they act like arms gripping the neck of the ecosystem, slowly choking it. After therepeated white phosphorus attacks, the fields and woodlands in the two villages turned into pale, charred expanses, unable to return to what they had been for many long years. Amnesty again documented the phosphorus attack, internationally prohibited, on the villages of Mays al-Jabal to the east and Aita al-Jabal in the center. And as happens in most wars of extermination, the perpetrators always seek to push the world into growing accustomed to the crime.

In theory, international law bans the use of white phosphorus under Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. But while the world went on with its life, the outlines of an early extermination were taking shape in South Lebanon, in parallel with its beginning in Gaza. Anofficial Lebanese report revealed that soil exposed to phosphorus does not undergo blanket contamination so much as an uneven “map of damage” grows within it, forming in hot spots, which dispels the idea of uniform poisoning and points to a more complex and dangerous pattern. Clearly, the figures reveal the degree of deterioration: phosphorus concentrations reached 1,858 parts per million in some sites in South Lebanon, reinforcing the hypothesis that white phosphorus bombs were used. Chromium concentrations exceeded permitted limits in 45% of the samples, and 59% of these exceedances were classified as “very high,” while zinc exceeded allowed levels in 22% of the samples, and copper in 9% of them. Beyond that, lead contamination was detected at a single isolated site in the Bekaa town of Boudai in eastern Lebanon, reaching 230 parts per million.

Figures like these do not point to chemical pollution of an ordinary degree, rather, they indicate a reshaping of the very structure of the land itself, at a deep level.

Woodlands’ natural shield collapsing

In satellite imagery, the villages have been erased, as if they never stood. Rubble upon rubble. No memories, no stories, no shared life that once bound the residents to the place. Residents following events with a mix of anxiety and pain say that all the roads have been bulldozed, with no trace left of the olive groves that bore witness to the lifetimes of Lebanese villages. Olives are part of South Lebanon’s identity, as the region produces around 38% of the country’s olive harvest overall, more than a third. Yet Israeli attacks have burned no fewer than 65,000 olive trees, including ancient ones.

Losses mount with each passing day. Recovery on the environmental front cannot be equated with infrastructure repair or financial restitution, difficult as those undertakings certainly are. According to recommendations issued in official Lebanese reports, recovery must be approached as a long process, in the face of deep environmental damage that has affected forests, agricultural lands, and existing ecosystems. We are speaking of woodlands fires, chemical pollution that has ravaged the soil, as well as contaminated rubble. All of this is not merely a temporary consequence of war, but it represents a long-term environmental threat.

Ecosystems are far more than just beautiful natural scenery. They form a basic economic infrastructure, tied to agriculture, health, and social stability. For this reason, destruction is not confined to demolished buildings. It goes beyond visible damage to a hidden, long-lasting harm: the disintegration of ecosystems and the loss of their ability to endure. According to Lebanese state estimates, environmental damage did not stop spreading across a wide geographic area, with the most severe impacts concentrated in South Lebanon and Nabatieh Governorate, especially during periods when military attacks intensified.

The forestry sector’s disaster extended beyond the burn zone. Basic environmental and economic functions collapsed. The burning of woodlands’ cover led to direct losses in resources, including pine production and firewood generated through traditional forest management, with the cost estimated at around 6 million US dollars. But the deeper loss lies in the destruction of vital environmental services, including soil protection, the preservation of biodiversity, and the regulation of the local climate. In this sense, the affected areas did not lose trees alone, they lost the lines of defense that had protected surrounding communities from erosion, drought, and gradual environmental collapse.

Across coast and hills: A quarter of the land in flames

It must always be recalled that these figures do not constitute a final assessment of the situation. Conditions continue to deteriorate in both the agricultural and livestock sectors, according to official Lebanese statements. The livestock sector has suffered heavy losses, including the death of around1.8 million heads of poultry and livestock, in addition to more than 29,000 beehives and over 2,000 tons of fish. To date, the cumulative area of agricultural land damaged by Israeli attacks has reached 22.5% of Lebanon’s farmland, nearly a quarter of the country’s agricultural area. This has had a direct and negative impact on Lebanese food security, with the share of emergency food assistance rising from 17% to 24%, leaving one million people living in Lebanon in urgent need of food supplies.

It must also be noted that small-scale farmers are the most affected. The limited plots managed by individuals or families make up around 80% of total agricultural holdings in the South, which has intensified the war’s impact on rural households and the local economy. This trajectory exposes a brutal dimension of colonial warfare: around 78% of farmers in the South are displaced from their villages and barred from returning, leaving only 22% able to remain on their land. As for the sea, it does not smile either: 26 boats lie sunk within it.

Managing the rubble

Rubble is not simply debris. It is not just what remains, but what has been violently undone. The debris left by the war has become something like a “second disaster,” not only because of its sheer scale, but because of its capacity to generate long-term pollution. According to preliminary data, the volume of rubble (up to the end of the war in 2024) was estimated at around 16 million tons—equivalent to roughly 10 million cubic meters of debris weighing down the natural landscape. Simply clearing it away is not enough. The debris, and what accumulates above and beneath it, constitutes a direct environmental threat, as it may contain asbestos, lead-based paints, silica dust, and heavy metals. The random dumping of such materials in valleys, forests, and agricultural lands can contaminate soil and water and fragment ecological habitats.

At the time of preparing this report, 40 temporary storage sites had been identified. It must be stressed that any delay in transporting the rubble to final, regulated sites will increase the likelihood of it becoming a permanent part of the landscape. That would amount to yet another disaster. According to recommendations, there are proposals under discussion at the planning and implementation levels that are based on a model of “circular recovery,” aimed at turning rubble from an environmental burden into a reusable resource. The Lebanese Ministry of Environment has put forward a plan to recover and recycle around 70% of the debris, with 30% of inert materials to be used in rehabilitating damaged quarries across 17 potential sites for final disposal and restoration (including 4 public and 13 private sites), with priority given to public ones. However, this transition depends on the early sorting of hazardous materials and on organized management that avoids improvised solutions. By early this year, the total cost of debris management was estimated at around 145 million US dollars. Regardless of the figures (which will likely far exceed that amount) reconstruction alone, or the mere removal of rubble, will not restore life. What is required is a rethinking and redesign of the relationship between infrastructure and the environment on more sustainable foundations.

During 45 days of war, up to the end of 2024, the war on Lebanon had completely destroyed 21,700 housing units, while another 40,500 units were damaged. Although homes are not environmental structures in themselves, no account of a recovering land is possible without acknowledging those who return to it, and whom it, in turn, receives: people who know the land and are known by it. As the war intensifies and the sharp rise in figures compared to pre-March 2, 2026, there is still no accurate data on the number of housing units destroyed in South Lebanon, despite figures circulating in the media, particularly as the war has not ceased.

From an environmental standpoint, the only possible response is continued monitoring, alongside sustained warnings about the ecocidal impact of the ongoing military operations on the ecosystems of southern Lebanon. As for the consequences, they continue to intensify relentlessly, mirroring the grief of residents confronted with the ruins of their lives scattered across their villages.

This report is based on official publications issued by governmental institutions and non-governmental organizations. 

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