Psychological toll mounts as Lebanese villages erased by Israel’s war

Beirut, Lebanon – In February 2025, Ali stood outside his house in Naqoura, in southern Lebanon, and pointed at the crack in the foundation and fruit trees pulled up by the Israeli military. The Israeli military had recently withdrawn from the town as part of a ceasefire agreement, but had left behind detonated homes, a graffiti-laden school, and power lines pulled out of the ground. Ali, an elderly man from the town, said at the time that he would fix it all. Recommended Stories list of 3 items end of list But a little more than a year later, Israel has completely razed the area of Naqoura, one of many towns and villages in southern Lebanon that the Israeli military has made completely uninhabitable . Forced to flee when the Israelis invaded again in March, Ali has traded his garden and family home by the sea for a room on a rooftop in the heart of Beirut. Sipping coffee, he lamented. “We had 20 good years,” he said, roughly referring to the period between the end of the 2000 Israeli occupation and the start of hostilities on October 8, 2023. For thousands of people like Ali, who are from towns or villages now razed to the ground, the future is unclear. The pain of having lost their homes is devastating, but experts expect an even greater psychological burden should these people eventually return to their villages. “When a village is flattened, and even the landmarks around it are gone, people lose more than their homes. …