Municipal head of Naqoura, southern Lebanon, stood next to the remains of the family home where he had previously resided with his wife and two children for the past 15 years. He was dressed in an olive green jacket and jeans.
The soft-spoken, charismatic, 40-something Awada used to welcome town residents in the family home and host big family gatherings with his wife.
The house survived more than a year of war, including a 66-day invasion, which saw Israeli air raids destroy much of Lebanon’s infrastructure.
Israeli forces destroyed the home where Awada’s children were raised after a ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah brokered in November.
Nearly 4,000 people were killed and left waves of destruction across Lebanon, especially in the south, as a result of the fighting that Hezbollah and Israel started on October 8, 2023, until a ceasefire reached its conclusion on November 27, 2024.
And, despite the ceasefire, the Israeli military has continued to attack Lebanon.
A ‘ceasefire’ in name only?
According to the ceasefire agreement, which was initially set to last 60 days, Hezbollah was supposed to retreat north of the Litani River, which runs across south Lebanon. Additionally, Israel was required to leave Lebanon and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) were to retake control of the south.
Many in Lebanon hoped that Israeli attacks would be ended by the ceasefire. But Israel has kept attacking, justifying its actions as trying to “dismantle and destroy” Hezbollah, a self-declared aim.
In addition to intentionally destroying homes in southern villages like Naqoura, it also devastated people who had fled the violence and had hoped to return to their homes after it had ended.
“I still see it as it was,” Awada said softly, looking at his home.
He pointed at the entrance and described the house’s layout. An Israeli bulldozer had toppled his home’s walls, according to him, and the kitchen and dining room were once a pile of concrete and steel.
A television, mounted on a uncovered living room wall and rife with bullet holes, was still among the wreckage.
“They just wanted to destroy,” he said.
He has not taken his children, aged 11 and 14, to see the ruins yet.
Legal Agenda, a Beirut-based nonprofit research and advocacy organisation, found that Israel committed more than 855 ceasefire violations by late January.
Ameneh Mehvar, a Middle East senior analyst for ACLED, an organisation that collects data on conflict, told Al Jazeera that it had recorded “over 330 air strike and shelling incidents” since the ceasefire.
A withdrawal that wasn’t
Naqoura, which is located close to the southern Lebanese border, had suffered significant damage during the conflict but had not yet invaded.
Israeli troops reportedly entered Naqoura in the middle of December, and reports began to surface that they were destroying both their homes and other south-lebanese villages.
By January 26th, Israel was supposed to have finished its withdrawal. The Israelis announced, with the support of the United States, that their presence would be extended until February 18 despite opposition from the government of Lebanon.
Israel made the announcement on Monday that it would “leave small amounts of troops deployed temporarily in five strategic points” in Lebanon.
After the arbitrary violence that affected them, the Israelis decided to leave Naqoura in early January, allowing residents to see what had left of their villages and homes.
‘They used bulldozers for revenge’
Ali Shaabi, 75, is still grieving over the intentional harm done to his fruit trees on a winding street behind Naqoura’s municipality building.
He explained that he hadn’t stopped watering his trees until he had to leave the house and stepped swiftly over rubble to reach his garden.
“I didn’t leave them,” he said, a cigarette and his yellow lighter never leaving his hands.
A mango tree is directly next to the tree, whereas plump grapefruits hang from one. Strategic objective of the Israeli soldiers’ torn out of the ground during the ceasefire is unknown.
He explained that the charred home he shared with his wife, children, and grandchildren had been set on fire, making the upstairs unaccessible because the stairs had been destroyed, while standing on the front porch.
When Shaabi’s rest of his family fled to Tyre during the war, Shaabi had remained in the home. When Israeli attacks on Lebanon increased, civil defense workers finally ordered him to flee, and he joined his family in September.
His house was fine when he left it, he explains, and was damaged only during the ceasefire. The entire structure must now be supported by pylons, and the basement and upper floors are now charred.
“They got bulldozers,” he said. “They came into Naqoura with bulldozers, for revenge. ”
Even some of the family’s clothing had been shot to pieces, presumably by Israeli soldiers and aimed at.
Hezbollah has traditionally enjoyed a lot of support among the predominantly Shia population in Naqoura. In fact, Hezbollah flags were planted in the rubble of some of Naqoura’s destroyed buildings.
However, international law forbids the destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure, and many Lebanese saw it as a direct punishment for Shia communities in Lebanon.
“Not everyone is Hezbollah,” Shaabi said. “Shia are not always Hezbollah. ”
‘I miss my village’
During the war, it was difficult to find out whether your home was still standing, but some villagers, like Reem Taher, managed to pay for regular satellite images of their neighborhoods to see what was happening.
Taher owned a beautician’s business before the war, but when the bombings started, he had to flee to Tyre.
Even on November 26, the day before the ceasefire, the images she was paying for showed her home intact.
But at 11am on November 27, she received one more report. Her home was completely destroyed after surviving a year of Israeli airstrikes.
“They blew up my house, levelled my land, and even enjoyed cutting down the trees,” she told Al Jazeera in the home she is renting in Tyre’s Hosh neighbourhood, an area that had also seen its fair share of destruction. The leveling of the building across the street.
I miss going to the beach in the morning. I long for our backyard gatherings and evenings. I miss my village’s tradition of picking clementines from the tree during Ramadan nights.
“I miss everything about my village – the sunset, the pine trees, and the sparkle of the sea from afar. ”
This ceasefire is false, according to the statement.
Nearly every home was reduced to piles of wreckage and infrastructure were destroyed on February 13 when Al Jazeera visited Naqoura.
The local school had bullet holes, power poles had been removed, and abandoned vehicles’ bodies had been left on the ground.
“They destroyed the mosque, the cemetery, and the infrastructure – roads, water, electricity. Anything that provided means of livelihood, they destroyed,” Taher said.
Israeli soldiers had taken control of some homes, leaving them strewn with food and goods imported from Israel.
The walls were covered in Hebrew writing, mostly with shift schedules. But on one refrigerator, a soldier had left a message: “We came to drive away the darkness. ”
Sanad, Al Jazeera’s verification agency, compared satellite images from December 3, 2024, and January 19, 2025.
The images from December 3 show many structures, including Awada’s home and the municipality building, with little visible damage.
The images from January 19 show destroyed structures, among them Awada’s home.
Between December 11, 2024 and January 6, 2025, the Israeli army reportedly carried out controlled explosions and home bulldozing in Naqoura. Each incident involved more than one house, according to their data.
Sitting on what remained of his porch, Shaabi chain-smoked, surrounded by his family – children and grandchildren.
The ending of the conflict gave many Naqoura residents hope for a return home. They never imagined that the ceasefire would cause harm or destruction to their homes.
