Scorching the Monk Forest: Israel’s ecocide in southern Lebanon

The borderline betwixt Israel and Lebanon is simply a premix of subject infrastructure, farmland, villages, and tiny towns. Among them lies a woodland that is 1 of the past earthy refuges successful the zone.

Harj al-Raheb, oregon the Monk Forest, lies connected the confederate borderline of Ayta ash-Shaab, a Lebanese colony close connected the borderline with Israel. Its 16 hectares (40 acres) are made up of 2 adjoining woodland areas, known locally arsenic the Southern and Western Hima, that erstwhile enjoyed a grade of extortion for their ecological richness and taste value.

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In aboriginal October 2023, these slopes were inactive heavy with oak, carob, terebinth, and bay trees. Locals utilized the tiny achromatic terebinth seeds to marque a section bread, portion the bay leaves were pressed to extract lipid and nutrient a accepted soap known for its quality.

Low shrubs and wildflowers filled the undergrowth and the unfastened patches. The flowers supported a thriving beekeeping trade, which grew aft 2019, erstwhile Lebanon’s fiscal situation deepened and galore families turned to it arsenic a secondary root of income.

The section environment, however, was incapable to withstand Israel’s warfare connected Lebanon.

A twelvemonth of relentless attacks, peculiarly successful the borderline area, lone ended with a ceasefire betwixt Israel and Lebanon successful November 2024. But Israel continues to onslaught connected a regular ground and occupies immoderate areas connected the border.

Away from the quality toll of those attacks – much than 4,000 Lebanese person been killed – Harj al-Raheb and its surrounding areas are ghosts of what they erstwhile were.

The scenery was defenceless successful the look of Israeli aerial attacks and shelling. Locals returning person recovered burned orchards and ample areas wherever trees person been cleared. The pollinators that depended connected the wildflowers and orchards, specified arsenic the Palestine sunbird, person dropped successful number.

One section official, Ali Dakdouq, said his household unsocial had mislaid astir of the 218 beehives they owned arsenic a effect of the fighting, forcing them to determination retired of the area.

For Hajr al-Raheb’s surrounding communities, the wood was much than scenery; it was a root of livelihood and a captious sanctuary for wildlife. Now, overmuch of it is gone.

Smoke rises from Israeli shelling, successful the Ayta ash Shab village, southbound Lebanon, October 9, 2023 [Mohammed Zaatari/AP Photo]

Widespread destruction

Today, the wider Harj al-Raheb country lies silent, partially scarred by the achromatic phosphorus shells that Israel utilized successful its attacks. Satellite images present amusement what looks similar achromatic craters scattered crossed what was erstwhile continuous greenish cover, on with extended bulldozing that stripped different parts of the terrain.

Ayta ash Shab, a colony that erstwhile had a colonisation of astir 17,000 people, was built connected the remains of an past fortified town. Its cisterns and terraces, archetypal chopped into the limestone centuries ago, continued to service the farmers who depended connected them for h2o and soil.

That continuity was violently interrupted erstwhile the warfare began. Fire and phosphorus erased successful a fewer months what centuries could not.

The demolition of Hajr al-Raheb and Ayta ash Shab came successful waves. First came the artillery occurrence and the achromatic phosphorus shells, mounting the canopy alight and leaving the undergrowth smouldering.

Air strikes followed, flattening woodland and scorching the orchards.

But the last stroke came aft the November 27, 2024, ceasefire, erstwhile Israeli troops crossed the frontier with bulldozers. The trees that had not antecedently been consumed by occurrence and bombs were cleared from their roots by machinery.

Many Lebanese judge this to beryllium portion of an Israeli effort to efficaciously make a dormant portion connected the border, a buffer zone that Israel believes volition marque it harmless from attacks, by removing villages and vegetation that could harbour threats.

“It wasn’t capable to pain it; they wanted to erase it,” said 1 villager, Hani Kassem.

Many birds usage Hajr al-Raheb successful southbound Lebanon arsenic a migratory way [Courtesy of Ali Srour]

Natural habitat

For Hani and different locals, Hajr al-Raheb was ne'er conscionable a picturesque landscape; it was a surviving strategy that sustained their lives.

Its dense trees erstwhile held the ungraded unneurotic connected a hill, curbing erosion and channelling seasonal floods to replenish underground reservoirs successful a portion wherever rainfall has been steadily declining and drought has go a changeless threat. The elevation is present bare.

The wood was besides location to 1 of the astir progressive predators successful the region, the Syrian jackal, alongside endangered striped hyenas, reddish foxes, Eurasian badgers, and the short-toed snake eagle.

Egyptian mongooses, seldom seen successful the Lebanese wilderness, patrolled the undergrowth, portion a mates of stone hyrax colonies occupied the limestone outcrops overlooking the valley.

Many different birds and tiny mammals, including owls, hoopoes, the Palestine sunbird, hedgehogs and chaotic boars, thrived successful this patchwork of woodland and stone. These taxon depended connected this tiny greenish refuge successful an progressively arid landscape.

After the destruction, immoderate of the animals person moved towards the destroyed colony and its edges. They present structure successful what is near of the houses, which a fewer families person returned to.

Some of the families provender the animals, with the dependable of Israeli drones flying overhead.

“We some mislaid the forest, and for them, it was their home,” Hani said, referring to the animals.

For the villagers, the nonaccomplishment has not lone been ecological, but profoundly personal. The wood that erstwhile anchored their lives and shielded their onshore is gone.

“It is the individuality of the town,” said different villager, Ali Srour. “And today, we person mislaid it.”

Black fume rises from an Israeli aerial onslaught connected the outskirts of Ayta ash Shab, a Lebanese borderline colony with Israel, successful southbound Lebanon, November 13, 2023 [Hussein Malla/AP Photo]

Organisational silence

Before Israel’s war, the hills successful this country of Lebanon formed a captious nexus successful the eastbound Mediterranean migration corridor and 1 of the busiest vertebrate migration routes connected the planet. Every outpouring and autumn, flocks of storks, raptors and songbirds would intermission among the olive groves and wood edges of Ayta ash Shab earlier continuing their journeys southbound oregon north.

In its 2025 assessment, released successful November, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) confirmed the planetary extinction of the slender-billed curlew (Numenius tenuirostris), 1 of the archetypal officially recorded extinctions of a migratory vertebrate species.

Once a regular traveller on this precise route, the curlew’s disappearance stands arsenic a stark informing of the accelerating illness of migratory pathways that erstwhile connected continents done shared skies. It besides underscores the immense pressures migratory birds are already enduring – from situation loss, municipality expansion, pesticide use, and clime alteration to the harsher realities of struggle zones scarred by achromatic phosphorus contamination and heavy-metal pollution, which usually spell unnoticed.

After 2 years of destruction, and contempt the extended documentation of achromatic phosphorus usage and wide ecosystem harm successful South Lebanon and Gaza, galore of the large wildlife conservation organisations person not addressed these violations, oregon their interaction connected migratory routes.

The IUCN issued a wide statement in October 2023, astatine the outset of Israel’s genocidal warfare connected Gaza, which expressed concerns implicit civilian casualties and humanitarian impacts, but did not notation Lebanon oregon code the biology damage, circumstantial weapons, ecosystems oregon migratory pathways.

Two years later, astatine the IUCN World Conservation Congress, held this October successful Abu Dhabi, members adopted a question that called for the restoration of Lebanese ecosystems impacted by war.

The question acknowledged the wide biology degradation successful Lebanon, including ungraded and h2o contamination, vegetation loss, erosion, wildfire risk, and threats to ecological connectivity. It called for post-war recovery, restoration guidance, and planetary method and fiscal support. However, the question did not place the liable parties, nor did it code the circumstantial causes of damage, including the usage of achromatic phosphorus.

At the aforesaid congress, members adopted different question recognising the transgression of ecocide. The question established a planetary ineligible model and mandated further guidance, but it did not notation Lebanon, Gaza, oregon immoderate equipped conflict.

Neither appears arsenic an illustration of conflict-related biology destruction, contempt the increasing planetary statement connected accountability for large-scale biology harm.

In correspondence, the IUCN stated that its attack is intentionally planetary and non-case specific. It said that the ecocide question was designed to use broadly, alternatively than to named conflicts, and that conflict-linked ecosystem demolition is addressed done wide ineligible and argumentation frameworks alternatively than done conflict-specific ecological assessments. This framing leaves the documented biology harm successful southbound Lebanon and Gaza extracurricular explicit organization attribution oregon case-based analysis.

Al Jazeera besides reached retired to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and BirdLife International to query their positions connected the interaction of Israel’s wars successful Lebanon and Gaza connected section ecosystems and wildlife.

The WWF stated that it has nary bureau oregon unit beingness successful Lebanon oregon Gaza, and has not conducted immoderate biology appraisal related to the war. It referred to its 2022 report, The Nature of Conflict and Peace, arsenic wide inheritance connected the links betwixt the environment, security, and peace.

BirdLife International stated that it has not issued a circumstantial nationalist presumption oregon connection connected the interaction of the warfare successful Lebanon and Gaza connected migratory species. It encouraged partners to papers the imaginable impacts erstwhile possible, but noted that documenting ecological harm during wartime is often unsafe oregon not possible.

BirdLife acknowledged that situation harm affects section populations and whitethorn impact migration depending connected the season, but stated that impacts successful Lebanon and Gaza cannot yet beryllium afloat determined.

Golden jackals person been spotted successful the Ayta ash Shab country of southbound Lebanon [Courtesy of Green Southerners]

Weaponisation of the environment

Meanwhile, successful confederate Lebanon, the warfare has revealed a darker reality: the weaponisation of the situation itself. Forests, soils and waters became targets, not collateral victims, successful a run that blurred the enactment betwixt subject strategy and ecological annihilation.

Today, astir of the slopes of Ayta ash Shab basal bare and lifeless, stripped of colour, dependable and movement. The habitats that erstwhile sustained insects, birds and mammals person been erased, leaving down contaminated ungraded and soundlessness wherever beingness erstwhile thrived.

Last September, a fewer flocks of migratory achromatic storks were seen passing overhead. But they did not halt wherever they erstwhile did. Those sites person been irreversibly altered.

From October 8, 2023, to October 3, 2024, Green Southerners verified 195 cases of achromatic phosphorus usage by Israeli forces crossed confederate Lebanon.

Residues of achromatic phosphorus and dense metals from repeated bombardment person contaminated the soil, posing semipermanent risks to agriculture and quality health.

Green Southerners is calling for urgent investigating and ecological appraisal earlier immoderate betterment effort tin begin.

Yet, the main obstacle remains security: Israeli attacks person continued adjacent aft the ceasefire was declared connected 27 October 2024, leaving the country unsafe for restoration work.