By Jiachuan Wu and Frank Matt
Nov. 26, 2024
When Israel launched its invasion of southern Lebanon in September, it publicly set narrow goals for the operation: “limited, localized,” with “targeted ground raids” aimed at stopping cross-border fire and degrading Hezbollah’s command structure.
But an NBC News investigation found that the Israel Defense Forces are creating a zone of widespread destruction along Lebanon’s border with Israel — destroying 42% of the buildings in the areas it has seized. To reach these findings, NBC News verified soldiers’ social media posts and examined satellite images as well as Sentinel-1 satellite radar data provided by Corey Scher of the CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University.
In a statement to NBC News, an IDF spokesperson said Hezbollah embeds military assets in and beneath civilian areas and cultural sites.
“The IDF will continue to destroy terrorist infrastructure as needed to achieve the war’s objectives,” the statement added. “The IDF does not seek to cause excessive harm to civilian infrastructure and strikes only based on security needs and the safety of Israeli civilians.”
Hezbollah, a powerful Lebanese militia and political party backed by Iran, began firing missiles into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023. It said it was supporting Hamas, which launched a terror attack in Israel a day earlier, drawing a response from the IDF. Israel and Hezbollah have been trading fire ever since.
The conflict has displaced 96,000 Israelis and 1.4 million Lebanese, according to their respective governments. The fighting has killed over 3,000 people in Lebanon, according to the Health Ministry, and more than 70 people in Israel.
