Beirut, Lebanon – In February 2025, Ali stood outdoors his home in Naqoura, in southern Lebanon, and pointed on the crack within the basis and fruit timber pulled up by the Israeli army.
The Israeli army had not too long ago withdrawn from the city as a part of a ceasefire settlement, however had left behind detonated properties, a graffiti-laden college, and energy traces pulled out of the bottom. Ali, an aged man from the city, stated on the time that he would repair all of it.
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However just a little greater than a yr later, Israel has utterly razed the realm of Naqoura, one among many cities and villages in southern Lebanon that the Israeli army has made completely uninhabitable. Compelled to flee when the Israelis invaded once more in March, Ali has traded his backyard and household dwelling by the ocean for a room on a rooftop within the coronary heart of Beirut.
Sipping espresso, he lamented. “We had 20 good years,” he stated, roughly referring to the interval between the top of the 2000 Israeli occupation and the beginning of hostilities on October 8, 2023.
For hundreds of individuals like Ali, who’re from cities or villages now razed to the bottom, the longer term is unclear. The ache of getting misplaced their properties is devastating, however specialists count on an excellent better psychological burden ought to these individuals finally return to their villages.
“When a village is flattened, and even the landmarks round it are gone, individuals lose greater than their properties. They lose the markers that informed them the place they belonged, and that’s a part of why we’re seeing such deep misery, together with in individuals who have by no means struggled with their psychological well being earlier than,” Basma Alloush of the Worldwide Rescue Committee informed Al Jazeera.
“For a lot of, it’s dropping the bodily traces of childhood, the tree they grew up close to, the road they performed in, the house that held a lifetime of reminiscences, with no solution to discover or verify any of it was ever there,” she added. “That form of grief has nowhere to land, as a result of the previous itself feels erased together with the place that held it.”
Villages razed
On March 2, Israel intensified its battle on Lebanon for a second time in lower than two years. It responded to Hezbollah firing rockets – the primary such assault in opposition to Israel by the group in additional than a yr – by re-invading southern Lebanon and hanging targets all throughout the nation.
Since then, Israel has killed 4,257 individuals in Lebanon and wounded greater than 12,000 extra. Greater than 1.2 million individuals had been displaced on the peak of Israel’s assaults. A few of these individuals have gone dwelling, however thousands remain displaced as a result of their villages are occupied or as a result of their properties had been destroyed.
Israel presently occupies roughly 6 % of Lebanese territory and a current agreement signed between Tel Aviv and Beirut appears to point that Israeli troops is not going to be abandoning their positions anytime quickly.
Human rights teams like Amnesty Worldwide had been already calling Israel’s destruction in southern Lebanon “in depth” after Israel’s 2024 destruction. However following the 2026 offensive, a UNDP evaluation discovered that 11,095 buildings had been utterly destroyed. Satellite tv for pc evaluation performed by the French publication Le Monde additionally discovered that since March 2026, 45 % of city areas in southern Lebanon have been broken or destroyed.
Amongst these areas are cities like Bint Jbeil, Kfar Kila, Meiss el-Jabal, Taybeh, Deir Siryan and Ali’s dwelling city of Naqoura. The extent of destruction is so extreme that it may be onerous for residents to find out the place their properties are in relation to the remainder of the city.
Davide Musardo, a scientific psychologist with Docs With out Borders – recognized by its French initials MSF, who frolicked in Gaza, stated that residents from the devastated strip usually misplaced “reference factors” to the place their properties had been.
Musardo stated that a lot of his sufferers who tried to return to their properties in Gaza after the ceasefire there informed him that they “didn’t recognise the place they had been as a result of every thing was destroyed” and ended up feeling misplaced.
Shedding a way of self
Many in Lebanon are struggling psychologically from the current Israeli battle.
However even earlier than Israel’s battle on Lebanon, the nation’s inhabitants was affected by a psychological well being disaster. A examine performed in 2022 by Lebanese researchers discovered excessive charges of psychological well being issues, together with despair, anxiousness and post-traumatic stress.
Lebanese have suffered deeply in recent times, with a 2019 rebellion and crackdown adopted by a banking and financial disaster, the 2020 port explosion, and now virtually three years of battle. A few of these crises have additionally compounded, as within the instance of 1 younger man who was wounded within the port explosion in 2020 and had the residence beneath his mom’s dwelling hit by an Israeli strike lower than six years later.
Children have additionally been deeply affected psychologically by the newest conflicts. A young person not too long ago informed AJ Plus that part of her “has been destroyed” after her dwelling in Tyre, southern Lebanon, was destroyed.
Lots of the Israeli techniques of destroying cities in Lebanon had been also used in Gaza. And now for Lebanese, having their properties destroyed extends “far past materials loss”, in accordance with Aya Mhanna, a psychological well being and psychosocial help and trauma specialist.
“When a village is destroyed, persons are not merely dropping their properties; they’re dropping a spot that has silently organised their identification, relationships, routines, reminiscences, and sense of belonging for years, typically generations,” she stated.
“Individuals don’t simply grieve buildings; they grieve what these locations represented and made potential. The loss shouldn’t be solely of what existed, but additionally of what can not exist,” Mhanna added.
The significance of rebuilding
Dr Joseph El-Khoury, a advisor psychiatrist and battle medication professional, informed Al Jazeera that the house’s significance could be very symbolic.
“It’s the place the place all people feels protected and, additionally notably in villages, the connection goes again generations and generations, so it’s about your historical past and your identification being erased and never simply bricks and mortar,” El-Khoury stated.
He added that the lack of such an integral half to an individual’s identification can result in demotivation and nihilism. “It’s essential that the rebuilding begins as quickly as potential, but additionally that it even tries to enhance on what was there earlier than.”
At the moment, Israel occupies massive swaths of southern Lebanon. Probably the most intense combating appears to have ceased, however Israeli officers point out that folks like Ali is not going to be allowed dwelling within the coming weeks.
And even when they can return dwelling within the close to future, they are going to be returning dwelling to devastated landscapes the place the wanted infrastructure – roads, water programs, electrical grids – have additionally been devastated.
“There is likely to be a possibility to rebuild correctly with an excellent higher ecosystem, however this requires a state, city planning and peace,” El-Khoury stated. With out that, he added, the individuals of south Lebanon’s destroyed villages “will be unable to heal.”
