Lebanon’s National Council for Scientific Research (NCSR) has issued a report that some 160 km² of land in southern Lebanon have been systematically burned by Israeli activity since 2023. This includes large amounts of farmland, but what is being called a “scorched earth” policy is increasingly including forests.
Recent weeks have been punctuated by claims Israeli forces are deliberately dropping incendiaries on southern forests to set them ablaze. Israel denies deliberately starting fires in such a way, but the method in which the incendiaries are used makes that a difficult argument to make.
Forests and olive groves are torched, while Israel is spraying pesticide on the farmland at levels which greatly exceed normal usage, leading Lebanon to accuse Israel of using herbicide as a weapon of war.
Smoke rises in southern Lebanon, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, in northern Israel, June 17, 2026. REUTERS/Shir Torem
The NCSR estimates tens of billions of dollars in damage have been done to Lebanese land as a result of Israeli military operations, and those operations are far from over, with several new attacks reported daily across the south, and the damage being so widespread and spanning so many areas that it’s not even possibly to reliably estimate the full toll.
“Those whose land they didn’t burn, they’ve bulldozed,” noted one villager from near Shaqra, an area actively under Israeli occupation for months, where demolition activity is still regularly ongoing. Many villages in the farthest south, particularly predominantly Shi’ite villages, are effectively totally gone at this point, and displaced residents face an uncertain future.
The Christian towns are somewhat different. Though Israel has attacked those towns intermittently throughout the war, they’re being careful to not destroy them outright. That’s both a blessing and a curse for residents of those towns, however, as they report Israel continues to have their towns totally surrounded and is severely limiting the ability of locals to leave without permission.
Individual vehicles are neither allowed to enter or leave the Christian towns, only being allowed to leave as part of officially Israel-approved convoys, and even then permission to join those convoys is inconsistent, requiring locals to seek advanced permission and to allow Israeli forces to inspect their vehicles and belongings before being allowed to travel anywhere.
This is a level of occupation that allows Israel to defend their operations as not exterminating Christian town, even as it effectively makes life in those towns unlivable, and ultimately forcing those Christians to make decisions about whether or not to remain in their historic homes, assuming they’ll even be allowed to leave.
