Beyond the rubble: Israel’s actions leave South Lebanon’s agriculture in ruins

 

If one were to paint a picture of southern Lebanon today, entire towns reduced to rubble would come into view, families displaced, and thousands killed or wounded in assassinations and attacks.

Yet beyond the human toll, there are losses that can be just as devastating — because they represent both the heritage of the past and the hope of the future. 

These losses lie in Lebanon’s agricultural and forest wealth, which Israel has repeatedly targeted since the start of the war in 2023 through various means.

At the height of the fighting, vast areas of farmland were burned by phosphorus munitions, and thousands of decades-old trees were uprooted. 

But the environmental damage did not end there. More recently, Israel sprayed chemical substances along approximately 18 kilometers of the Blue Line, from Aalma El Chaeb to Rmaych.

The substance used is one that farmers typically apply in carefully controlled quantities to eliminate weeds. However, the concentrations used by Israel were between 30% and 50% higher than standard agricultural levels. In a statement, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said this was not the first time Israel had used unidentified chemical substances over Lebanese territory.

This amounts to an environmental crime by all standards, even though the full extent of the damage has yet to be determined. It adds to losses in Lebanon’s agricultural sector estimated at $747 million, in addition to direct damages valued at $73 million in the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon.

This represents a cry born of the suffering of every farmer. The question remains: What does Israel want from Lebanon’s agricultural sector?

Maps showing damage from southern Lebanon through the Bekaa Valley, extending as far north as Sidon, illustrate varying levels of destruction to crops caused by Israeli bombardment. 

Another map highlights losses in orchards, underscoring the scale of the devastation.

Taken together, the data suggest a clear objective: turning these areas into scorched land.

What Israel is doing appears aimed at preventing Hezbollah from rebuilding its capabilities, both underground and above ground, where forest cover once existed, and at suffocating its surrounding environment by preventing displaced residents from returning, so that it no longer serves as a supportive base.

According to this reading of events, Israel’s plan follows a broader pattern of creating border zones along all its frontiers — with Lebanon as part of that strategy — the depth and future viability of which remain known only to Tel Aviv.