MANSOURI, Lebanon — The center of Mansouri lies in ruins: single-story shops blown out, goods scattered, glass along the sidewalk, homes pancaked and unrecognizable. The mosque is blackened, its minaret split. A Lebanese civil defense vehicle is crushed amid the rubble.
Mansouri, in the hills of southern Lebanon about six miles from the Israeli border, now sits less than a mile from the area Israel calls the “yellow line” — territory Israeli troops occupy. Abed Ammar, 35, an emergency responder who returned to the village during a temporary ceasefire, says he and his family hear controlled demolitions from nearby Israeli-occupied villages. “The demolitions are louder than airstrikes,” he says.
The Israeli military has publicly documented controlled demolitions in many of the roughly 55 Lebanese towns and villages it now controls in the south, releasing videos showing neighborhoods destroyed in seconds by detonations. Israel says the demolitions target Hezbollah infrastructure and aim to create a buffer zone to stop attacks on its northern towns. Critics say the operations, alongside intensive airstrikes over two months, have heavily damaged civilian infrastructure — a pattern human rights experts and aid groups say mirrors Israel’s actions in Gaza and may violate international law.
United Nations–appointed human rights experts condemned the destruction and the use of broad evacuation orders, saying the actions show “utmost contempt for the international legal order” and echo tactics used in Gaza. Israeli officials have at times been explicit about the resemblance. “The fate of southern Lebanon will be the same as that of Gaza,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said after the military detonated what it described as a large Hezbollah weapons cache in the south, blaming Hezbollah for the demolitions.
Journalists and residents can reach only as far south as the edge of the Israeli-occupied zone. There, NPR teams found buildings crushed by airstrikes, personal belongings amid rubble and cars burned out. Lebanese officials estimate about 62,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed since March. Satellite imagery, used because of restricted access, shows broad swaths of towns and villages being leveled.
Corey Scher, a postdoctoral researcher at Oregon State University’s Conflict Ecology laboratory, which monitors conflicts by satellite, says southern Lebanon is increasingly resembling Gaza in the scale and pattern of destruction. He notes large areas previously damaged are now being completely flattened, with airstrikes followed by ground incursion and controlled demolitions producing towns “effectively wiped off the map.”
Israel has also struck crucial infrastructure. Over the past two months it has hit bridges across the Litani River, destroying major crossings into the south; the coastal Qasmiyeh bridge, the last remaining southern crossing, was struck in the final hours before the temporary ceasefire. Israel says bridges were used by Hezbollah to move weapons, but humanitarian groups warn that destroying crossings hinders civilians, aid, and emergency response. Water systems, electricity networks and other civilian services have also been hit, compounding needs for people sheltering elsewhere.
Oxfam warned in March that Israeli forces were “using the Gaza playbook in Lebanon,” detailing damage to water and electricity infrastructure and bridges that cut off supplies and services. Israel denies deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure, saying its operations are necessary for national security.
For residents of the occupied areas, the destruction means a loss of any safe return. Fifty-year-old Zainab Mahdi, from the coastal village of Naqoura now under Israeli control, has been living in a temporary shelter in Tyre since 2024 after fleeing earlier fighting. She had been rebuilding a home damaged in the last war; U.N. peacekeepers told her most of her village is now gone. “I’m angry, and I’m sad,” she says. “But I’m also feeling a lot of fear — fear about how long it will be before we can return? What if that doesn’t happen in my lifetime?”
Mahdi says her home garden has been bulldozed. She vows to return as soon as she can: “Just smelling our own soil is enough. Just sitting down on your own land in your own village, it lifts your spirits, despite everything.”
Israel occupied parts of southern Lebanon for nearly two decades in a previous conflict; officials now say they are prepared to stay in the occupied areas for months or even years. Humanitarian groups, U.N. experts and researchers warn that demolition of homes, destruction of infrastructure and blocked access for aid risk long-term displacement, severe civilian suffering and damage that will be difficult to repair.
