Footage verified by AFP on Monday confirmed large detonations in a southern Lebanese border village, the place a neighborhood official mentioned lots of of homes have been worn out by Israel since final yr.
The video, shared broadly on-line on Monday, confirmed greater than a dozen simultaneous detonations that ripped by way of Mais al-Jabal and razed houses to mud.
Related aerial scenes have been captured from a number of border villages, together with Mhaibib and Odaisseh, since Israel despatched floor troops into southern Lebanon in late September.
Homes protecting lush hills are seen crumpling in a cloud of gray mud within the movies circulating broadly on-line.
Israel says it’s focusing on Hezbollah infrastructure close to the frontier in a bid to push the Iran-backed group away from the border and permit for its residents to return to northern Israel.
Monday’s video from Mais al-Jabal confirmed giant detonations close to a vacated hospital within the village, mentioned mayor Abdul-Monhem Choukair.
The realm has been repeatedly struck since Israel and Hezbollah began buying and selling cross-border hearth in October final yr.
“Seventy % of Mais al-Jabal is destroyed,” the mayor mentioned, including that the “Israeli enemy’s purpose is systematic destruction”.
Choukair mentioned 4 folks, aged between 85 and 90, are trapped in Mais al-Jabal pending their rescue.
In response to Lebanon’s official Nationwide Information Company (NNA), Israeli troops dynamited buildings in at the least seven border villages final month.
Israel’s Channel 12 final month broadcast footage showing to indicate one among its presenters blow up a constructing whereas embedded with troopers within the village of Aita al-Shaab.
Lebanon’s Nationwide Human Rights Fee has mentioned “the continuing destruction marketing campaign carried out by the Israeli military in southern Lebanon is a battle crime”.
Between October 2023 and October 2024, areas “have been wantonly and systematically destroyed in at the least eight Lebanese villages”, it mentioned, basing its findings on satellite tv for pc photographs and movies shared on social media by Israeli troopers.