Washington Post: Israel destroyed about a quarter of the buildings in southern Lebanon
Thousands of buildings in Lebanese border towns have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli attacks, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
According to the newspaper’s analysis based on satellite images and videos, at least 5,858 buildings in the border area have been damaged, with about 25% of buildings in 25 towns along the border with Israel affected.
Most of this destruction has occurred since the start of Israeli ground operations in southern Lebanon in early October, with the amount of destruction roughly doubling every two weeks.
Analysis of video footage also shows that at least nine religious sites have been damaged or destroyed in controlled explosions.
Earlier, satellite images provided to Reuters by Planet Labs showed that the Israeli military campaign in southern Lebanon had destroyed more than a dozen border towns and villages, many of them reduced to grey craters.
Some of these towns had been inhabited for centuries, but are now completely empty due to the bombing.
The images seen by Reuters show towns stretching from Kfar Kila in southeastern Lebanon to beyond the village of Mays al Jabal in the south, and west to the small village of Labbouneh, near the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) base.
Comparing satellite images taken in October 2023 with those taken in September and October 2024, Reuters showed that many of the affected villages are on hilltops overlooking Israel.
Israel has intensified its strikes on southern Lebanon after nearly a year of cross-border fire, with Israeli forces pushing deeper into the mountainous terrain and clashes with Hezbollah fighters raging in some towns.
Recent images of the village of Kfar Kila show a main road dotted with white spots, indicating the destruction of homes that surrounded it, an area that was once populated and lush with greenery a year ago.
In the village of Mays al Jabal, located 700 meters from the Blue Line separating Lebanon and Israel, an entire residential block was severely damaged.
The damaged area, about 150 meters wide and 400 meters long, now appears as a brown patch of sand, indicating that buildings have been flattened.
Images of the same area taken in 2023 showed a densely populated neighborhood of homes.
