According to a UN report, between October 8, 2023 and September 20, 2024, Israeli forces carried out more than 5,600 airstrikes in southern Lebanon. The airstrikes also included white phosphorus, an incendiary weapon prohibited in populated areas under the 1980 United Nations Convention on Conventional Weapons.
These attacks, considered war crimes by international NGOs, have destroyed 1,900 hectares of farmland and left a further 1,200 hectares abandoned.
Lebanon lost 47,000 olive trees, thousands of livestock and 1,200 hectares of forest. “Olive trees have always been targeted because they are deeply connected to the land and its people,” said Nagam Khalil, a spokesperson for Jibar, an NGO that researches agroecology and supports farmers. “If you destroy it, history will also disappear.”
shelling
Another Syrian farmer, Ahmad Mohammad Daoud, who fled southern Lebanon, now rents an unfinished house in Saad Nael for $150 (£118) a month. “We had to give up everything, crops and livestock,” he says. “The land is so damaged that it may take two or three years to become fertile again.”
Just a few kilometers from the Choja family’s makeshift shelter is the Bjurna-Juzurna organic farm where they once trained. The farm employs 20 people from Lebanon, Syria and France, produces crops according to organic principles and maintains a seed bank. A nearby house was recently bombed.
“We sort the chickpeas here,” says Serge Alfouche, one of the farm’s founders. “Some have been replanted, while others have gone to 10 community kitchens across the country to feed displaced people. We can continue this effort for now, but how long will it last?” The founder explains that this activity can continue until the end of December at the latest.
The war is jeopardizing access to fields and Lebanon’s fragile food security. In another nearby plot, 25 hectares are planned for wheat and other staple crops. Bujrna Juzurna’s team has had a chance to till the soil and hopes to sow seeds within the next few days.
But since then, there are still question marks over how they will maintain their operations in this part of the Bekaa Valley, as the war continues and shelling becomes more frequent by the day.
munitions
Activists say Israeli shelling targets Lebanese farmland, threatening the livelihoods of countless families already struggling in an unprecedented economic crisis that has been ongoing since 2019.
“These attacks seriously undermine food sovereignty,” says Angela Said, Jibar’s program director. Even before October 7, 2023, Lebanon was dependent on imports for 80 percent of its food and 82 percent of its population lived below the poverty line.
“If Lebanon was better prepared in terms of food security, and if farmers were more collectively organized, there would be ways to manage this risk better,” says Angela Saad. .
The environmental damage caused by war is immeasurable. Bomb fuses contain heavy metals, and some scientists suspect that bunker buster penetrations may be made of tungsten or depleted uranium. Further research is needed to determine the exact extent of the war’s environmental impact.
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“Extreme destruction has a negative impact on ecosystems,” says Abbas Baalbaki, an environmental researcher and Green Southerners activist, not to mention rebuilding the country.
More than 20 villages in southern Lebanon have been destroyed by the Lebanese army so far. “Rebuilding destroyed villages will require huge amounts of energy and will have a huge carbon footprint,” Baalbaki added.
Mustafa Saeed, a farmer from Beitlif near the border, knows this all too well. After a year of almost daily shelling, he lost everything. It had cattle, crops, olive trees, and family land that had been taken care of for years.
When I met him at the public school in Tire, where he now lives with his family, he said: All the olive trees were burned. Even if the war ends, I have nothing to return to. ” From Beirut to the Bekaa to southern Lebanon, bombing continues to destroy lives, land and the environment.
this author
Amelie David is a freelance journalist based in Lebanon covering environment and climate change topics. This article was published through the Ecologist Writers Fund. We’re asking readers to donate £200 to some authors for their work. please Please donate now. For more information about the fund, you can apply through our website.
