In southern Lebanon, Israeli forces may no longer occupy towns on foot—but for residents, the war continues overhead and from the nearby hilltops.
Daily drone patrols hover above villages, launching strikes with no warning. Snipers stationed on Israeli-held hilltops train their sights on roads, rooftops and fields.
In September, an Israeli drone strike in Bint Jbeil killed five civilians, including three children. The victims were traveling by car through a residential neighborhood when the missile hit.
According to UN-backed assessments, nearly 100,000 residences across Lebanon were damaged or destroyed by Israel, with the majority concentrated in the country’s south. Amnesty International has called for this conduct to be investigated as war crimes, citing “apparently deliberate attacks on civilian property” and the widespread destruction of homes, schools, and farmland.
Drop Site News contributor Jeremy Loffredo documents the widespread destruction in the towns of Bint Jbeil, Farchouba, and Kfarkila—areas once occupied by Israeli troops and now under constant surveillance from occupied hilltops and targeted by drones overhead.
Despite severe damage, families are returning to their homes, some of which were used as Israeli military bases during the occupation. Local stores have reopened, even as drone strikes continue to hammer the area. Community leaders are determined to rebuild their villages, fully aware that every effort will be met with renewed attacks.
“Anything Israel doesn’t want to see return, they destroy,” said one shopkeeper in Bint Jbeil, describing the daily drone attacks. Pointing across the highway toward Israeli sniper positions, he added, “And they shoot at anyone just to instill fear.”
This report comes from towns that were under conventional military occupation last year and now remain under a different kind of control—constantly surveilled from nearby occupied hilltops and targeted from above. Southern Lebanon is no longer a conventional war zone, but a terrain where civilian life is monitored, disrupted, and routinely struck.
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