Israeli flags and flattened homes: A rare look inside occupied southern Lebanon

Driving south on a coastal road in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese and Hezbollah flags that line the road suddenly switch to Israeli flags. Soon, an Israeli checkpoint comes into view, where soldiers stand watch from the balconies of homes riddled with shrapnel.

And then, the landscape turns flat: Village after village, home after home, reduced to rubble.

This is what Israeli-occupied Lebanon looks like.

CNN gained rare access by joining a convoy of residents permitted to move through that occupied territory to reach their homes in three predominantly Christian villages. They have been spared the fate of the surrounding Shia Muslim villages that now resemble a wasteland.

Israel invaded southern Lebanon in March after Hezbollah, a Shia Lebanese militant group backed by Iran, resumed strikes on Israel to avenge the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Since then, the Israeli military has occupied a band of territory about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) deep to establish what it calls a “security zone” to protect Israel’s northern residents from the threat of rocket attacks from Hezbollah .

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed to destroy all homes in villages near the border. On the ground, the evidence of that is clear.

Most villages have been systematically flattened by Israeli forces, and residents of the remaining Christian villages described hearing daily controlled demolitions in neighboring communities.

According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, more than 4,300 people have been killed by Israeli strikes since March 2, and the United Nations says more than 350,000 remain displaced since Israel’s occupation began.

As our journey continues, the road twists through apocalyptic terrain until, out of nowhere, life reappears. Buildings stand intact, cars move through the streets and children ride their bikes, as life appears to go on as normal.

But the reality is more complicated than appearances may suggest.

The villages of Rmeish, Ain Ebel and Debel have been largely spared Israel’s bombardment and demolitions, but their residents – almost all of whom are Christian – are cut off from the rest of Lebanon, unable to go in or out without joining a UN-led convoy.

Caritas, a Catholic non-profit that helps organize some of the convoys, must request permission for each resident from the Israeli military through a US-led monitoring mechanism. Approvals usually come, but the convoys are sometimes delayed or canceled, and the journey can take anywhere from a couple of hours to an entire day.

Ronnie and Rita Alam fled Rmeish with their two daughters in March, as Israeli bombardment intensified around them. They rented a home in Beirut, which strained their finances. CNN met them as Ronnie drove his wife and daughters back to Rmeish for the first time in four months. Ronnie, however, must return to work in Beirut.

“I’m happy that I’m returning to my home, but I’m unhappy because my husband won’t be with me,” Rita said, becoming emotional.

“Our family is being separated,” she said, wiping off tears. “We are four, and now we will become three.”

A ceasefire is technically in effect, but Israeli strikes continue in southern Lebanon on a daily basis. Israel insists this is allowed under the latest ceasefire agreement.

Despite the risks, Ronnie said that financially there was no real alternative to sending his family back to their village.

“Civilians have nothing to do with this. Why should they lose their homes? This destruction is a shame… and for what? For war? We don’t want war!”

Inside Ain Ebel, another of the majority Christian villages, Yorgos Mitri has gotten used to war. Even his 2-year-old son, Joe, can recognize the sound of fighter jets flying overhead, he said, and airstrikes no longer wake him at night.

Surrounding Ain Ebel are the ruins of towns and villages hit by relentless Israeli bombardment, bulldozing and controlled demolitions. Mitri chose to stay through it all, out of attachment to his home and fear he might not be able to return to it.

Like many Christians in these villages, he has no sympathy for Hezbollah, blaming the group for triggering the war that has turned the view from his home into a landscape of destruction.

“You can see the results… what did we achieve after all of this?” he said, pointing to the ravaged town of Bint Jbeil.

His anger at Hezbollah is matched by his sympathy for his civilian Shia Muslim neighbors, who have borne the brunt of Israel’s bombing and demolitions in the south.

“Nobody deserves this,” he said, looking out at the devastated landscape. “We can’t live alone. We need to live all together.”

He laments what he views as a weak and ineffective Lebanese government, which he says needs to regain control of its territory.

For now, the Lebanese government is powerless to operate in the Israeli-occupied portion of the country. Under a US-led framework agreement between Israel and Lebanon signed in June, Israel is meant to hand over tiny pockets of the territory it occupies to the Lebanese army, establishing so-called “pilot zones.” But there is little indication the plan will go ahead as intended.

It began in three villages, all Shia Muslim majority, but none had been fully occupied by Israeli forces to begin with – leading many to question whether Israel ever intended to withdraw.

CNN exclusively joined the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) on a patrol mission to one of them, Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh.

Lebanese soldiers deployed there are tasked with preventing armed non-state actors, like Hezbollah, from coming in; confiscating any weapons and remnants of war; and restoring state authority. The priority, according to Col. Raja Amer, the assistant to the commander of the South Litani sector, is making the area safe for displaced residents to return.

But his forces face many challenges.

The Lebanese economic crisis has gutted funding for the army. Soldiers earn an average of $500 a month, and much of their equipment is outdated or in short supply.

“Our troops are operating in a very demanding and challenging security environment,” Amer told CNN. “This is why we need more capabilities to do these missions.”

The risks include unexploded ordnance left behind by either Hezbollah or Israel and persistent Israeli airstrikes. According to the Lebanese army, 34 soldiers have been killed in 2026 alone.

As a soldier spoke about a comrade he’d lost in a previous Israeli airstrike, Israel began shelling the nearby village of Mansouri – four strikes in less than 20 minutes.

None of the soldiers reacted. For them, this was normal.

Amer said the army had recorded more than 5,000 Israeli attacks on Lebanon since the framework agreement was signed in June.

“It’s continuous and it’s everywhere… this is what the ‘ceasefire’ is from their side,” he said.

In Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, there is no Israeli military presence. But just a couple of hundred yards away, Israeli tanks and bulldozers are visible, and the demolition of buildings continues apace. Soldiers and residents told CNN that drones fly overhead constantly, and they hear the sound of artillery shelling every day.

It hardly feels like a ceasefire to those on the ground, nor do the pilot zones appear to be paving the way for Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory.

Lebanon’s painful history of sectarian violence always simmers beneath the surface. For three years now, many have feared that Hezbollah’s war with Israel could be the spark that lights the tinderbox.

Hezbollah draws much of its support from Shia Muslim-majority towns in southern Lebanon, which endured nearly two decades of Israeli occupation at the end of the last century, a situation compounded by a lack of economic opportunity and a sense of abandonment by the government in Beirut. Hezbollah, which is both a political party and militant group, came to be viewed by much of the Shia population as a protector against Israeli aggression and a provider of social services for a neglected community. The United States and United Kingdom have designated it as a terror group.

On the drive CNN took with the Lebanese army, Hezbollah flags and posters commemorating fighters killed in the conflict lined most roads, a sign the group still enjoys significant support.

“Hezbollah in Lebanon has a political part and a military part,” Amer said. “They are a part of this population. They were here, and the symbols stay in the place still now.”

Israeli officials say the Lebanese army is not disarming Hezbollah fast enough by conducting more aggressive searches in people’s homes. However, Lebanese law bars the army from entering private property without a judicial warrant or legal authorization, which it currently does not have.

Mindful of the country’s recent history of civil war, the Lebanese military says it is taking care to avoid fueling sectarian strife. “Doing things in violence against our own people, it will be also with other consequences,” Amer said. “We will do this slowly. We will do this in a reasonable way.”

Negotiations between Israel and Lebanon have stalled, with no sign Israel intends to withdraw its forces from occupied territory. Israel’s Defense Minister has said the military would not withdraw from Lebanon even if the United States demanded it.

With Israeli elections set for October, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will likely want to hand his base a clear victory on this front. Amer said the Lebanese army was prepared to take on more pilot zones if political negotiations bear fruit but warned the effort won’t succeed if conditions mirror the first attempt.

“We stuck to the agreement. We need the other part to stick to the agreement too and to cease fire, at the very least,” he said.

Fewer than one in 20 of Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh’s residents have returned home so far, according to the Lebanese army – a figure it hopes to see rise.

Mahmoud Darwish is one of them, having come back after the army deployed to the village. Speaking with CNN, he didn’t explicitly voice support for Hezbollah but said anyone attacked has the right to resist with force.

Darwish was displaced for five months. When he returned in July, he found his home badly damaged – rubble up to his knees, soot darkening the walls. He said the village lived off farming, and that the now destroyed olive trees in his garden had long been his livelihood.

Walking through the rubble, he placed one palm flat against a wall, then held it up – blackened.

“This is Israel and America,” he said, raising it up. “And this is Lebanon, us,” he said, raising his clean hand.

“They killed us, they killed our people, killed our loved ones, killed our friends, destroyed our homes. How do they think they’ll ever make peace with us?”

As he spoke, an Israeli airstrike thudded in the distance. Darwish barely flinched.

“No enemy will ever remove us from our land … she loves me and I love her … we are here and we will remain here.”

沿着黎巴嫩南部沿海公路向南行驶，路边原本飘扬的黎巴嫩国旗和真主党旗帜突然变成了以色列国旗。很快，一个以色列检查站映入眼帘，士兵们站在布满弹片的房屋阳台上站岗。

然后，地貌变得平坦：一个又一个村庄，一栋又一栋房屋，都变成了废墟。

这就是以色列占领下的黎巴嫩的现状。

CNN获得了难得的采访机会，他们加入了一支获准穿越被占领土、返回三个以基督教徒为主的村庄的居民车队。这些村民幸免于难，免遭周边什叶派穆斯林村庄如今沦为荒地的命运。

今年3月，真主党——一个由伊朗支持的黎巴嫩什叶派武装组织——恢复了对以色列的袭击，以报复伊朗最高领袖阿亚图拉·阿里·哈梅内伊遇刺身亡。此后，以色列军队占领了纵深约10公里（6.2英里）的区域，建立了所谓的“安全区”，以保护以色列北部居民免受真主党火箭弹袭击的威胁。

以色列国防部长伊斯拉埃尔·卡茨誓言要摧毁边境附近村庄的所有房屋。实地情况也印证了这一点。

大多数村庄已被以色列军队系统性地夷为平地，剩下的基督教村庄的居民称，他们每天都能听到邻近社区进行有控制的爆破拆除。

据黎巴嫩卫生部称，自 3 月 2 日以来，已有超过 4300 人死于以色列的空袭；联合国表示，自以色列占领开始以来，已有超过 35 万人流离失所。

随着旅程继续，道路蜿蜒穿过一片末日般的荒芜之地，突然间，生命奇迹般地重现。建筑物完好无损，汽车穿梭于街道，孩子们骑着自行车，一切似乎又恢复了正常。

但事实远比表面看起来复杂得多。

Rmeish、Ain Ebel 和 Debel 这几个村庄基本躲过了以色列的轰炸和拆毁，但这些村庄的居民（几乎都是基督徒）与黎巴嫩其他地区隔绝，如果不加入联合国领导的车队，就无法进出。

天主教非营利组织明爱会协助组织部分车队，但必须通过美国主导的监督机制，为每位居民向以色列军方申请许可。虽然通常都能获得批准，但车队有时会被延误或取消，行程可能需要几个小时到一整天不等。

今年三月，随着以色列轰炸在他们周围愈演愈烈，罗尼·阿拉姆和妻子丽塔·阿拉姆带着两个女儿逃离了拉梅什。他们在贝鲁特租了一间房子，这让他们的经济状况捉襟见肘。CNN记者在罗尼开车送妻子和女儿们返回拉梅什的途中采访了他们，这是四个月来他们第一次回到拉梅什。然而，罗尼必须返回贝鲁特工作。

“我很高兴能回家，但又很不开心，因为我的丈夫不能和我在一起，”丽塔说着说着就激动起来。

“我们一家要拆散了，”她一边擦着眼泪一边说。“我们原本是四口之家，现在要变成三口之家了。”

虽然停火协议在技术上仍然有效，但以色列对黎巴嫩南部地区的空袭仍在每日进行。以色列坚称，根据最新的停火协议，这种做法是允许的。

尽管存在风险，罗尼表示，从经济角度来看，除了将家人送回村子之外，别无他法。

“平民百姓与此事毫无关系。他们为什么要失去家园？这种破坏令人羞耻……这一切又是为了什么？为了战争吗？我们不要战争！”

在另一个以基督教徒为主的村庄艾因埃贝尔，约尔戈斯·米特里已经习惯了战争。他说，就连他两岁的儿子乔都能分辨出战斗机从头顶飞过的声音，空袭也不再让他夜不能寐。

艾因埃贝尔周围是饱受以色列无情轰炸、推土机夷平和定向爆破摧残的城镇和村庄废墟。米特里选择留了下来，因为他深爱着自己的家乡，也害怕自己再也回不去了。

和这些村庄里的许多基督徒一样，他对真主党没有丝毫同情，他指责该组织挑起了这场战争，使他家乡的景色变成了满目疮痍的废墟。

“你们看看结果……我们做了这一切之后取得了什么成果？”他指着满目疮痍的宾特杰贝勒镇说道。

他对真主党的愤怒与他对南部遭受以色列轰炸和拆毁的什叶派穆斯林平民邻居的同情不相上下。

“没有人应该遭受这样的苦难，”他望着满目疮痍的景象说道。“我们不能孤立地生活，我们需要团结在一起。”

他感叹黎巴嫩政府软弱无能，并表示黎巴嫩政府需要重新控制其领土。

目前，黎巴嫩政府在以色列占领区内无能为力。根据美国主导的以色列与黎巴嫩于6月签署的框架协议，以色列本应将其占领的一小部分领土移交给黎巴嫩军队，建立所谓的“试点区”。但几乎没有迹象表明该计划会按预期进行。

战争始于三个什叶派穆斯林占多数的村庄，但以色列军队最初并未完全占领这三个村庄——这让许多人质疑以色列是否真的打算撤军。

CNN独家跟随黎巴嫩武装部队（LAF）前往其中一个村庄——Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh——执行巡逻任务。

部署在那里的黎巴嫩士兵的任务是阻止真主党等武装非国家行为体进入该地区；没收任何武器和战争遗留物；并恢复国家秩序。据南利塔尼地区指挥官助理拉贾·阿梅尔上校称，首要任务是确保该地区安全，以便流离失所的居民能够返回家园。

但他的部队面临诸多挑战。

黎巴嫩经济危机严重削减了军队经费。士兵平均每月收入500美元，而且他们的许多装备都已过时或短缺。

阿梅尔告诉CNN：“我们的部队在非常艰苦且充满挑战的安全环境中执行任务。这就是为什么我们需要更多能力来完成这些任务。”

风险包括真主党或以色列遗留的未爆弹药以及以色列持续不断的空袭。据黎巴嫩军方统计，仅2026年一年，就有34名士兵丧生。

一名士兵正在讲述他在之前的以色列空袭中失去的战友，这时以色列开始炮击附近的曼苏里村——不到 20 分钟内就进行了四次炮击。

士兵们毫无反应。对他们来说，这很正常。

阿梅尔表示，自6月份签署框架协议以来，军方已记录到以色列对黎巴嫩发动了5000多次袭击。

他说：“这是持续不断的，而且无处不在……这就是他们所谓的‘停火’。”

在扎乌塔尔·加尔比耶，没有以色列军队驻扎。但仅仅几百米之外，就能看到以色列的坦克和推土机，建筑物的拆除工作也在快速进行。士兵和居民告诉CNN，无人机不断在头顶盘旋，他们每天都能听到炮击声。

对于身处现场的人们来说，这几乎感觉不到停火，试点区域似乎也没有为以色列从黎巴嫩领土撤军铺平道路。

黎巴嫩教派冲突的痛苦历史始终暗流涌动。三年来，许多人担心真主党与以色列的战争会成为引爆这颗火药桶的导火索。

真主党的大部分支持者来自黎巴嫩南部什叶派穆斯林占多数的城镇。上世纪末，这些城镇遭受了近二十年的以色列占领，经济机会匮乏，以及被贝鲁特政府遗弃的感受，都加剧了当地的困境。真主党既是一个政党，也是一个武装组织，被许多什叶派民众视为抵御以色列侵略的保护者，以及为这个被忽视的群体提供社会服务的机构。美国和英国已将其列为恐怖组织。

CNN记者跟随黎巴嫩军队驱车前往黎巴嫩，沿途大部分道路两旁都飘扬着真主党旗帜和纪念在冲突中阵亡战士的海报，这表明该组织仍然享有相当大的支持。

阿梅尔说：“黎巴嫩真主党既有政治部分，也有军事部分。他们是当地民众的一部分。他们曾经在这里，他们的标志至今仍留存在这里。”

以色列官员表示，黎巴嫩军队通过加强入户搜查来解除真主党武装的速度不够快。然而，黎巴嫩法律禁止军队在没有司法搜查令或合法授权的情况下进入私人住宅，而黎巴嫩军队目前并没有此类授权。

鉴于黎巴嫩近期内战的历史，军方表示正在谨慎行事，避免加剧教派冲突。“对我们自己的人民采取暴力行动，必将带来其他后果，”阿梅尔说。“我们会循序渐进，以合理的方式推进此事。”

以色列与黎巴嫩之间的谈判陷入僵局，以色列没有表现出从占领区撤军的意愿。以色列国防部长表示，即使美国提出要求，以色列军队也不会从黎巴嫩撤军。

以色列将于10月举行大选，总理内塔尼亚胡很可能希望在这一问题上为他的支持者赢得一场彻底的胜利。阿梅尔表示，如果政治谈判取得成果，黎巴嫩军队准备接管更多试点区域，但他警告说，如果情况与第一次试点相同，那么这些努力将不会成功。

“我们遵守了协议。我们需要对方也遵守协议，至少要停止交火，”他说。

据黎巴嫩军方称，到目前为止，Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh 的居民中只有不到 1/20 的人返回家园——军方希望这一数字能够上升。

马哈茂德·达尔维什就是其中之一，他是在军队进驻村庄后返回的。在接受CNN采访时，他没有明确表示支持真主党，但表示任何遭到攻击的人都有权以武力抵抗。

达尔维什流离失所五个月。七月他返回家园时，发现房屋损毁严重——瓦砾堆及膝，墙壁被烟熏得漆黑。他说，村里人以务农为生，而他花园里那些如今已被毁的橄榄树，曾是他赖以生存的支柱。

他穿过废墟，将一只手掌平放在墙上，然后举起——手掌已经变黑了。

“这是以色列和美国，”他举起手说。“这是黎巴嫩，这是我们，”他举起干净的手说。

“他们杀了我们，杀了我们的人民，杀了我们的亲人，杀了我们的朋友，摧毁了我们的家园。他们怎么可能和我们和平相处呢？”

他说话间，远处传来以色列空袭的闷响。达尔维什几乎没有动弹。

“任何敌人都无法将我们赶出这片土地……她爱我，我也爱她……我们在这里，并将永远留在这里。”