From Bombing to Bulldozing: How Southern Villages Became Targets for the Erasure of Life
On April 20, 2026, the southern town of Beit Lif, located only a few kilometers from the border with Israel, was not on the margins of the war. It was one of the villages subjected to repeated bombardment, especially during the recent period. On that day, Israeli military vehicles advanced toward the outskirts of the village and began what resembled a slow process of erasure. Bulldozers uprooted homes as though the destruction itself were the objective.
What southern Lebanon has been experiencing in recent weeks goes beyond the familiar image of bombardment. Border villages, including Beit Lif, are no longer only under attack from shelling, but are subjected to a systematic assault targeting the very foundations of life itself: homes, land, and whatever remains of the possibility of living there. In this context, the destruction of a house becomes as much a political act as a personal tragedy.
“Nothing Is Left…”
“They sent it to me on WhatsApp. I kept replaying the video… pausing at every frame, searching for any sign. I couldn’t recognize the house.” He laughs quietly, then sighs and falls silent. Ezzat, known as Abu Ali, left Lebanon during the civil war. He settled in Germany and worked there for many years, like many from his generation. Yet he never severed his connection to Lebanon, nor did he consider exile a permanent substitute. There was always a postponed project in the background: returning home. “I was building the house while I was there. I knew every detail in it, from the tiles to the walls. I used to say: this is my house, my land, and my identity.” The house in Beit Lif was not an investment; it was a life plan.
The Return That Never Happened
As he approached retirement age, Abu Ali began preparing for his return. The decision was not sudden, but the result of years of waiting. His children all knew the story: a house in the south, land, a village, family, and relatives. “I planted this idea in them. That we are not just expatriates. We have a place to return to. Not once did we skip spending the summer in Lebanon. Even when money was tight, I insisted. I wanted them to know where they came from, what their roots are, and to love this country the way I do.” But the south he had been waiting for had changed. Since late 2025, tensions had returned to the border and gradually escalated into open confrontation. Villages began to empty of their residents, and then of their homes. “People started saying there was no safety anymore. I thought we would just wait a little longer. I never imagined the house itself would disappear.”
April 20: The Day the House Became a Memory
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On that day, military vehicles entered Beit Lif. Abu Ali’s house was not a military site or a combat position. It was a closed and empty house, like many others whose owners had left believing they would soon return. “There’s nothing that justifies this. It’s obvious what they’re doing. They don’t want anything left for us to return to.” The operation was not quick. According to residents of the village, the bulldozing continued for hours. House after house. Walls collapsing, courtyards leveled to the ground. “Even the tree… the fig tree I planted, it’s gone. That hurt me the most.” Many houses… the same story.
Many Houses… The Same Story
While speaking, Abu Ali does not exaggerate his personal loss. He constantly widens the circle. “It’s not just my story. The whole village is like this. Some people suffered more than I did, some houses were older, some memories were deeper.”
Abu Ali’s loss is not an exception in Beit Lif. Throughout the village, the stories resemble one another more than they differ. Houses were locked in haste, and their owners left hoping to return after a few days, only to discover later that what they had left behind no longer existed as it once did. Some could not even see their homes in person, while others relied only on photos or video clips sent from afar. Each time, the same scene repeats itself: sudden news, long silence, and an attempt to process a loss too immense to comprehend all at once.
In another part of Beit Lif, a similar loss is told in a different voice. Smiha, known as Umm Hassan, who had been living in Beirut’s southern suburbs, used to return to her house in the village every summer. For her, the house was not a permanent residence, but an extension of a life that had never truly been interrupted. She says: “We came back every year, even during wartime. We never stopped. The house was always waiting for us.” A few weeks ago, the news reached her the same way it reached so many others: a quick phone call, then a video. She did not try to watch it more than once. From the first viewing, she understood. “There’s nothing left.”
“We came back every year, even during wartime. We never stopped. The house was always waiting for us.”
She pauses briefly before adding: “It’s not just the house. Everything inside it… the photographs, the belongings, the little details that can never be replaced.” Like Abu Ali, Umm Hassan does not speak only about an individual loss. For her, what happened goes far beyond her own home. “The whole village has changed. It’s not only that our houses are gone… it’s the feeling that there is still a place for us to return to that is disappearing.”
This is what southern Lebanon looks like today: individual losses accumulating into a collective landscape. According to Lebanon’s National Council for Scientific Research, more than 62,000 homes were damaged or destroyed within just a few weeks. The houses being demolished are not merely places of shelter, but anchors tying people to their land. With every house removed, return becomes more difficult and less realistic.
He still thinks about returning, without any real hesitation. He says simply: “Of course. Where else would I go?” For him, the question is not even open for debate. The house no longer exists, that is true, but he does not see that as the end. “Maybe there’s no house now, but the land is still there. We’ll return and start again.” His words come out calmly, as if he is trying to hold onto an idea more than convince anyone else. In the south, houses are never just passing details. They are often built over long years of labor and are frequently the result of years spent abroad or daily hardship. They are constructed gradually, piece by piece, with every visit and every season. Even amid constant border tensions, people never stopped building, as though they were clinging to the one thing they still had left: the land.
This attachment is not expressed only in words, but in action itself. In the insistence on rebuilding what has been destroyed, on returning whenever possible, and on keeping the house standing, even if only temporarily or incompletely. In the end, the house is not merely a place, but a way of remaining connected and rooted in the land of the south.
A Lebanon Economic Monitor report issued by the World Bank points to a sharp rise in prices in Lebanon as a result of the economic crisis that began in 2019, affecting various goods, including construction materials. Rebuilding these homes is therefore far from simple. Construction costs in Lebanon have risen dramatically in recent years due to soaring prices of raw materials. Economic reports indicate that the price of a ton of steel increased from around 500 dollars before the collapse of the Lebanese pound and the surge in import costs to nearly 1,000 dollars, directly increasing construction expenses and making reconstruction a heavy burden on residents. What is destroyed in a single moment may have taken years to build. The loss, therefore, is not merely that of fallen walls, but the collapse of long years of effort and an entire life plan.
Between Germany, where he spent most of his life, and Beit Lif, where he lost not only his house but something much larger, Abu Ali remains attached to one idea: that what he lost does not erase what he built. And that return, even now, is still possible. In southern Lebanon, where homes are destroyed and villages emptied, there are still those who insist on holding onto their land, even after losing the house itself.
