MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Irael's war against the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah has driven hundreds of thousands of civilians from their homes in southern Lebanon. Satellite data and eyewitness testimony gathered by NPR reveal vast destruction, meaning that for many residents, there's very little to return to. NPR's Ruth Sherlock has the story - and a warning that it contains the sounds of war.
RUTH SHERLOCK, BYLINE: An Israeli soldier counts down.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER #1: (Non-English language spoken).
SHERLOCK: Three.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER #1: (Non-English language spoken).
SHERLOCK: Two.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER #1: (Non-English language spoken).
SHERLOCK: One.
(SOUNDBITE OF DEVICE CLICKING)
SHERLOCK: He presses a button...
(SOUNDBITE OF MISSILE EXPLODING)
SHERLOCK: ...And the Lebanese hilltop village of Mhaibib explodes, rows of homes eviscerated in seconds. This video was released by the Israeli military, and it shows one of several such demolitions in Lebanese towns close to the border with Israel. Israel says it's destroying these homes because it says Hezbollah has tunnels that run under them.
(SOUNDBITE OF MISSILE EXPLODING)
SHERLOCK: But the damage from these rigged blasts and from the intense aerial bombardment in this part of Lebanon is extreme.
(SOUNDBITE OF MISSILES EXPLODING)
SHERLOCK: Videos from the rural border town of Khiam show homes and surrounding trees destroyed and on fire.
MARWA KHREIS: (Speaking Arabic).
SHERLOCK: Marwa Khreis and her family fled Khiam when an airstrike hit the house beside theirs one night.
KHREIS: (Speaking Arabic).
SHERLOCK: "We were afraid of the fighter jets, and when they hit near us, we heard the missiles."
KHREIS: (Speaking Arabic).
SHERLOCK: "Then the power went out."
KHREIS: (Speaking Arabic).
SHERLOCK: "It was truly terrifying."
In Khiam alone, 741 buildings have been hit. That's according to Corey Scher of New York's CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University.
COREY SCHER: We get an idea of, like, the fraction of buildings that we detect as damaged.
SHERLOCK: They've built a map that draws on satellite data to show that 12,809 buildings across Lebanon have been damaged or destroyed.
SCHER: The vast majority are focused in the southern regions along the border.
SHERLOCK: In these areas, Scher says...
SCHER: Over half of buildings in a number of municipalities in the south are damaged or destroyed. So this is all qualitatively just to say that that corridor of destruction within 5 kilometers of the border is very much taking shape.
SHERLOCK: This corridor of destruction doesn't mean that Israel is trying to create a buffer zone that prevents civilians returning to their homes from villages where Hezbollah had support, says Israeli government spokesman David Mencer.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DAVID MENCER: Once we have completed the clearing of Hezbollah from our northern border, then Lebanese civilians will be able to come back into their own homes.
SHERLOCK: Although Israel doesn't seem to be including the idea of a buffer zone in ceasefire talks with Lebanon, Wim Zwijnenburg, from the Dutch organization PAX that focuses on protecting civilians in war, says the Israeli military may be creating facts on the ground.
WIM ZWIJNENBURG: They'll have no land to go to. Their houses are destroyed. So I think it clearly sends the message we don't want you there.
SHERLOCK: And in a phone interview, Ghassan Hammoud, the mayor of Markaba, a devastated town on the border, questions what Israel considers Hezbollah targets.
GHASSAN HAMMOUD: (Speaking Arabic).
SHERLOCK: "The school, the rescue services building, the health clinic, the sewing factory - it's all gone."
And Israel has also been blowing up the water supply to these villages, says Wassim Daher, the director of the South Lebanon Water Establishment.
WASSIM DAHER: The pumping lines, the wells, the pumps, the solar energy production plants, water storage tanks. Everything was destroyed.
SHERLOCK: For Mona Fawaz, a professor of urban studies at the American University of Beirut, this is intentional, to make it harder for civilians to come back. She says, in her village in the south, the Israeli military are destroying the places that make it feel like a community.
MONA FAWAZ: It's the village center. It's the municipality. It's the old citadel of commune that was hit. It's all these collective spaces that actually bring people together.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SHERLOCK: Earlier this month, Lebanese citizen Julia Ali posted on Instagram a video of herself playing a grand piano in her ancestral home in the town of Khiam. She plays in a high-ceilinged room underneath a glittering chandelier.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER #2: (Vocalizing).
SHERLOCK: Then she shared a video she found posted on the internet of an Israeli soldier playing her piano in what now remains of the home.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER #2: (Vocalizing).
SHERLOCK: The windows are blown out. The walls are shattered or burned. The soldiers laugh and sing along, and one dances over the rubble holding his gun. Watching the soldiers in her home, she writes, it feels like they're trampling on my soul.
Ruth Sherlock, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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