On the night of June 13, Zeinab (55 years old) scrambled in search of her teenage son. An Israeli airstrike had just destroyed a residential neighborhood in Jennata, 26 kilometers from the border. The blast wave stretched more than two kilometers in diameter, according to locals. After a short time that felt like hours to Zeinab, the young man put her heart at ease with a brief message: “I’m fine”. He was treading through the village streets, littered with glass from shattered windows, toward the source of the noise.

The strike targeted the neighborhood with heavy missiles, blowing up a three-story building and destroying parts of neighboring buildings. This is the greatest destruction that the Legal Agenda has viewed outside the border region. “I was shocked and afraid. I saw sights reminiscent of the destruction of the border villages and even Gaza, but this time it was in my village, which was safe just moments earlier,” says the young man. Medics rescued 20 wounded civilians, including children. From underneath the rubble, they recovered two bodies: Sally Skaiky, who had been up late with a group of friends in front of her home, and Dalal Izzedine, who had been packing to travel the next day.

The southern border erupted on October 8 as Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began. The Israeli aerial offensive on Lebanon expanded to encompass most villages in South Governorate and Nabatieh Governorate. Grave danger looms over the border villages opposite Israeli military positions, extending all the way to Ghazieh and Zahrani on the Mediterranean in the west and to the villages of Nabatieh, Rihan Mountain, and Beqaa in the east.

The number of displaced persons has reached 100,000. Of these people, 98% sought refuge in homes outside the region, while 2% went to schools-turned-shelters in Tyre and Nabatieh. According to data from the Ministry of Health and the National Council for Scientific Research, 1,904 people, including 134 children, had been wounded and 471, including 129 civilians, had been killed by 15 July 2024.

As the war expands and Israel crosses more red lines, particularly by targeting civilians, field data and testimonies available to the Legal Agenda indicate that Israel is applying a scorched earth strategy to the border regions. This investigation deconstructs this strategy.

Demolishing the Border Villages

The Legal Agenda reviewed satellite images of the town of Aita al-Shaab published by Reuters, as well as dozens of mobile phone videos filmed on various dates in the villages of Aita al-Shaab, Blida, Aitaroun, Kfarkela, Odaisseh, Ramyeh, and Yaroun, and compared them to testimonies from sources who accompany the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) on its patrols between Kfarkela and Kfarchouba. We also compared the testimonies to figures from the development foundation Jihad al-Bina and the Council of the South, and consulted local sources and the testimonies of citizens who have frequented the targeted border villages during the recent period. We found that there is an Israeli focus on turning the front row of border homes, from Naqoura to Chebaa, into rubble. Citizens we met said that their homes began being targeted during the first three days of the war.

Over nine months of war, Israel has been trying to raze these villages. In 55 front-line villages, airstrikes have damaged an estimated 35,000 homes, totally destroying 5,000 of them. This figure was cross-checked with a source from Jihad al-Bina. The residents of these destroyed homes are estimated to constitute one quarter of the villages’ inhabitants. The homes in these villages belong to permanent residents, families residing between the capital and the villages, and families residing abroad. Surveys and evaluations are needed to determine which structures can be repaired and restored and which require demolishing and rebuilding, municipal sources told us. Because an accurate survey cannot be conducted under fire, the tally of destroyed homes remains tentative.

In Aita al-Shaab, which received the largest share of the airstrikes, the Reuters images show the destruction of 64 sites, each including a number of buildings and homes. Cross-referencing the figures indicates that 600 homes have been destroyed in the village and more than 1,000 have been damaged. In Dhayra, which lies adjacent to the border strip with Palestine, the destruction has encompassed 60% of the village’s homes, at least one third of which have been totally destroyed, according to estimates from official and local sources and inhabitants’ testimonies cross-referenced by the Legal Agenda.

Destroying Power and Water Sources

The Legal Agenda tracked the targeting of vital infrastructure, including sources of power and water. These attacks worry the inhabitants. Aita al-Shaab resident Abu Nayef Tahini says, “As soon as there is a ceasefire we will return, even if that means living with relatives or even in a tent in our town. But we’re not sure we will have water, electricity, food, and the other life essentials”.

The Legal Agenda has documented the destruction of ten water plants in the region by airstrikes. In a report published on June 27, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that these stations serve 100,000 inhabitants (the permanent residents of the targeted region). Moreover, the danger of white phosphorus poisoning continues to loom over the region’s springs, ponds, and other water sources and, by extension, the soil and crops. This we documented in a detailed investigation published in the same issue as this article.

The data and footage that the Legal Agenda reviewed show that the Israeli offensive has destroyed 50% of all solar panels. In Tayr Harfa alone, a solar farm comprising 192 panels and related equipment constructed between 2021 and 2022 with funding from locals to pump the town’s tank water was destroyed. So too were the water pumps on the Zarqa Water Spring in western Beqaa, which supplies approximately 35 towns and villages in Beqaa and Southern Lebanon.

Scorched Earth

The Israeli aggression continued the scorched earth policy in the border villages by targeting agricultural areas, livestock, poultry farms, and bee colonies. The losses in this sector are especially devastating because the inhabitants of the region depend on agriculture to live. Israel has destroyed 20% of the agricultural areas and the entire animal husbandry sector, which is estimated to have included 340,000 head of livestock, poultry, and beehives, according to figures obtained by the Legal Agenda and detailed in its white phosphorus report.

Israel has also targeted, in a manner that could be described as systematic, farmers who try to save their livestock from starving to death. Shepherds have been killed during their daily journey to the pastures in Wazzani and in their homes in Houla. Similarly, workers have been killed on the poultry farms targeted. People displaced from the border-strip villages interviewed by the Legal Agenda said that they stopped thinking about rescuing their livestock once the sector began being systematically targeted. They said that the sector’s destruction, which has caused them to miss harvesting seasons and may cause them to miss coming seasons because of the poisoning of the land, is destroying their only sources of income.

Fires have been one of the main weapons used against the villages. On June 4, leaked footage showed Israeli soldiers spraying petrol over the border to kindle fires. Other clips show Israeli soldiers using catapults to launch fireballs.

Civil defense teams have also been hit several times by both nearby airstrikes and direct bombing with white phosphorus and incendiary weapons, according to testimonies that civil defense personnel from the Islamic Risala Scout Association delivered to the Legal Agenda. Such personnel survived a direct attack on April 25 in the woods of Yaroun. Videos viewed by the Legal Agenda show the moments in which they found themselves encircled by concentrated gunfire and bombing. One civil defense member was also reported to have been wounded in the chest by shrapnel during an artillery barrage that targeted volunteers extinguishing a fire in the town of Taybeh on June 24. Similarly, a video viewed by the Legal Agenda shows civil defense teams being targeted by artillery while they were extinguishing a fire in Aitaroun on July 3. Volunteers have reported being targeted with white phosphorus and artillery almost weekly, according to a source in the Islamic Health Organization’s civil defense. The targeting of people trying to salvage what they can from the agricultural sector is evidence that the destruction of the sector in this region is deliberate.

Targeting Workers in Vital Professions

The scorched earth strategy has also targeted the human element, i.e. the vital workers in professions that boost the population’s resilience and maintain the essentials of civilian life. These workers include, in particular, medics and technicians responsible for repairing breakdowns in the water supply and telecommunications.

Twenty-one medics have been killed at work, constituting over 16% of civilian deaths. At dawn on March 27, seven were killed in one airstrike that targeted a health facility in Habbariyeh, Arkoub, while they were completing their night shift. It was the only health facility servicing Arkoub’s villages. According to a previous Legal Agenda investigation, the strike deprived 2,000 people holding out in the region of their last source of health services. Similarly, Israeli military operations led to the closure of six health facilities in border villages, according to the OCHA’s June 27 report.

On May 27, the entrance of Salah Ghandour Hospital in Bint Jbeil was targeted in an incident that killed a hospital worker from the Islamic Health Organization and another civilian, namely Ali Abbas (25 years old) and Ali Yazani (44 years old), and wounded 15 civilians, including health workers. A doctor in Bint Jbeil Hospital told the Legal Agenda that the closure of the health facilities in the districts of Marjayoun and Bint Jbeil has increased the pressure on the hospital.

The technicians killed were “trying to repair the systematic destruction done to the various aspects of life in the border region, especially the breakdowns that can tolerate no delay,” according to Hassan, a relative of Salih Mahdi. Israel killed Mahdi while he was on his way to perform maintenance to ensure the continued supply of water to Naqoura.

Israel also directly targeted a technical team from the company PowerTech, which performs maintenance work for the telecommunications company Touch, in Tayr Harfa while they were performing maintenance under escort from the Lebanese Army and the Risala Scout Association’s civil defense. Technician Youssef Jalloul and medic Ghalib Hussein al-Haj were killed. A statement issued by Touch said that the team headed out after obtaining permission from UNIFIL (which is responsible for informing the Israeli side in such cases), as confirmed by sources cooperating with the main UNIFIL facility in Naqoura. Muhammad, a friend of Youssef and a fellow technician, said that the targeting has prevented maintenance teams from going to the border regions, warning of the accumulation of breakdowns.

Crimes in the Dark: Targeting Journalists

Among the workers of vital professions, the second person killed in Lebanon in the early days of the war was none other than Reuters photojournalist Issam Abdallah. The Israeli army assassinated him when it targeted media teams in Aalma El Chaeb on 13 October 2023. It claimed that he was killed in crossfire, but five investigations by human rights and press institutions confirmed that he and the other journalists were targeted directly. Five weeks later, Al Mayadeen journalist Farah Omar, photojournalist Rabih Al Maamari, and logistics assistant Hussein Akil were assassinated in Tayr Harfa.

The Legal Agenda reviewed 10 attacks on press teams, eight of which occurred during the first seven weeks, up to the assassination of the Al Mayadeen team. Later, journalists refrained from going to the border villages. Today, they are concentrated in Ibl al-Saqi and Marjayoun. By driving away journalists, Israel has obscured its destructive approach in these villages.

Journalists working for various American newspapers and international media outlets whom the Legal Agenda contacted confirmed that their institutions have prohibited them from fieldwork south of the city of Tyre. One journalist said that following the assassination of Omar and Al Maamari, the editor-in-chief in Washington told him that the outlet now believes that the Israeli army is targeting journalists and could no longer guarantee his safety.

Earth Scorched… And Bloodied

Most of the civilians killed were in their homes at the time. On October 14, elderly couple Khalil Ali and Zubad al-Akum were killed in Chebaa when their house was bombed. On November 21, elderly Laiqa Sirhan was killed and her little granddaughter Alaa wounded in Kfarkela, causing the people remaining in the village to leave immediately. On December 1, Nasifa Mizraani and her son Muhammad were killed in their house in Houla.

The death toll continued to climb. Elderly people who insisted on staying in their villages in previous wars (as the elderly often do) said that, “Something different is happening today. The targeting is crazy – it spares no one”. Many people have challenged this Israeli policy and paid the price by being targeted directly. Among them were friends Rafiq Qasim and Hussein Salih, who, after being displaced from their town of Aita al-Shaab, continued returning to it to feed the stray cats and dogs only to be killed in a direct Israeli attack.

Entire families have also been killed, including the Hussein family in their home in Houla on 5 March 2024 and the Hanika family when, after fleeing to Beirut, they returned to Meiss El Jabal to transport goods from their store in the village.

Israel also killed three children and their grandmother in an airstrike on their car between the towns of Aitaroun and Aainata (the mother survived). In response to reports by Israeli military media that the car contained a “terrorist cell”, the girls’ uncle said, “This was a car with children, not terrorists, inside”. He added, “To them, any citizen holding out in the south, whether a child, woman, or elderly man, is a soldier. This is the policy of terror”.

An Aggression Against the Entire South

During the second week of July, the Israeli army began white phosphorus bombing in the villages of Arkoub, which lie adjacent to the border region and had remained outside the scope of the concentrated attacks for nine months. On July 14, the Marjayoun plant, owned by Electricity of Lebanon, was targeted with 15 artillery shells and put out of service. The bombing cut the electricity and shut down the water pumping stations throughout the city of Jdeidet Marjayoun, the town of Khiam, and the seven villages of Arkoub. This region hosts thousands of families displaced from the border villages.

In the rest of the south, the Israeli aggression is still in the stage of airstrikes moving from village to village and city to city. One of the bloodiest days in the current war was February 15, which witnessed 11 civilian deaths, including children, and dozens of wounded in Nabatieh, Souaneh, and Aadchit. The Jennata airstrike is the latest major airstrike – in terms of destruction and civilian casualties – outside the border region, with two killed and 20 wounded, including children.

Institutionalizing War Crime and Israeli Intentions

The scorched earth strategy includes destroying or shutting down resources that are indispensable to the survival of the civilian population. These resources are mentioned in Article 54 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which lists “foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works”. Of course, the article prohibits targeting these objects “whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive”.

Evidently, the scorched earth policy is being applied in the same region that witnessed the old “security belt” strategy in the days of Israel’s occupation of Southern Lebanon. This indicates an intent to achieve gains by destroying the essentials of civilian existence in this particular geographical area such that destruction becomes a goal in and of itself, thereby disproving the claim that it is merely collateral damage.

Here, we must recall the “Dahiya Doctrine” that Israel employed for the first time in the 2006 war and its godfather, minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s recently resigned government and then-head of the Northern Command, Gadi Eisenkot. In 2008, Eisenkot called for the destruction of any Lebanese village from which Israel is fired upon. “What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on… From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases,” he said, explicitly denying all the inhabitants their civilian status.

This doctrine has been adopted by Israel as a military strategy and used in its wars on Gaza since 2008, reaching its peak in the current genocidal war. All indicators today confirm that Tel Aviv has adopted it in Southern Lebanon too. This all shows Israel’s institutionalization of war crime, which constitutes, in the words of the previous United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, “state terrorism”.

Israeli political and military officials have explicitly expressed this doctrine in the current war. For example, in November 2023, the minister of “defense” Yoav Gallant stated that “the ones who will pay the price will be first and foremost Lebanese citizens”. In the early weeks of the war, Prime Minister Netanyahu threatened to turn Beirut and Southern Lebanon into Gaza and Khan Younis. Minister of Education Yoav Kisch called for “driv[ing] 400,000 residents of south Lebanon away, beyond the Litani river” and said in another statement: “The way things are progressing at the moment, Lebanon will be annihilated”.

This article is an edited translation from Arabic.