In the wake of the Nov. 27 ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians are returning to their homes in southern Lebanon only to find them reduced to rubble, along with shops, mosques and medical clinics. “Barely a village has been left untouched, exposing a scale of civilian suffering that surpassed previous wars with Israel,” reported a Financial Times correspondent who toured the area.
FT notes that the UN has said the patterns of destruction in Lebanon are akin to those in Gaza. Local government and Hezbollah officials say at least 10% of buildings in southern Lebanon have been destroyed—much more than in the previous Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006. In an initial assessment, the World Bank estimated the cost of physical damage and economic losses due to conflict at $8.5 billion.
Throughout the war, Israel has said it was only targeting Hezbollah militants and infrastructure in order to “degrade” it, accusing the group of embedding itself in civilian areas and using them as “human shields,” FT continues. But the damage to civilian areas and infrastructure has been enormous, with local officials accusing Israel of waging a “scorched-earth” campaign in the final days of the war to create lingering, “systematic” damage.
