‘A belt of territory people cannot live in’: Why Israel is creating an ‘uninhabitable’ zone in southern Lebanon
BEIRUT/LONDON: As Lebanese and Israeli officials meet in Rome this week in a fresh attempt to resolve decades-old border disputes and negotiate Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon, events on the ground are moving in the opposite direction.
Nearly two years after a ceasefire agreement ended large-scale fighting, Israeli forces continue to destroy homes, farmland and public infrastructure in occupied Lebanese territory, fueling fears that the destruction is intended not simply to eliminate Hezbollah positions but to permanently prevent residents from returning.
“Whatever the legal status of the zone, and whatever any agreement says about withdrawal, what exists on the ground is a belt of territory people cannot live in,” Ahmad Baydoun, an open-source investigator and doctoral candidate at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, who is researching the use of white phosphorus weapons in urban conflict, told Arab News.
“That does not reverse itself when the shooting stops.”
