The information got here by video. Regulation professor Ali Mourad found that Israel had dynamited his household’s south Lebanon dwelling solely after footage of the operation was despatched to his telephone.

“A buddy from the village despatched me the video, telling me to verify my dad doesn’t see it,” Mourad, 43, mentioned.

“However when he acquired the information, he stayed robust.”

The aerial footage exhibits simultaneous explosions rock a cluster of buildings on a lush hill.

Mr. Mourad’s dwelling in Aitroun village, lower than a kilometre from the border, is seen crumpling in a cloud of gray mud.

His father, an 83-year-old paediatrician, had his medical observe within the constructing. He had lived there together with his household since shortly after Israel’s 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon led to 2000.

The household fled the area once more after the Israel-Hezbollah conflict erupted on September 23 after a yr of cross-border fireplace that started with the Gaza conflict.

South Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold, has since been pummelled by Israeli strikes.

Hezbollah says it’s battling Israeli forces at shut vary in border villages after a floor invasion started final month.

For the primary 20 years of his life, Mr. Mourad couldn’t step foot in Aitroun due to the Israeli occupation.

He needs his two kids to have “a connection to their land”, however fears the conflict may upend any remaining ties.

“I worry my kids shall be orphaned of their land, as I used to be prior to now,” he mentioned.

“Returning is my proper, an obligation in my ancestors’ reminiscence, and for the way forward for my kids.”

‘Die a second time’

In response to Lebanon’s official Nationwide Information Company, Israeli troops dynamited buildings in a minimum of seven border villages final month.

Israel’s Channel 12 broadcast footage appeared to indicate one in every of its presenters blowing up a constructing whereas embedded with troopers within the village of Aita al-Shaab.

On October 26, the NNA mentioned Israel “blew up and destroyed homes… within the village of Odaisseh”.

That day, Israel’s navy mentioned 400 tonnes of explosives detonated in a Hezbollah tunnel, which it mentioned was greater than 1.5 km (round a mile) lengthy.

It’s in Odaisseh that Lubnan Baalbaki fears he could have misplaced the mausoleum the place his mom and father, the late painter Abdel-Hamid Baalbaki, are buried.

Their tomb is within the backyard of their dwelling, which was levelled within the blasts.

Mr. Baalbaki, 43, purchased satellite tv for pc photographs to control the home which had been designed by his father, in polished white stone and clay tiles.

However movies circulating on-line later confirmed it had been blown up.

Mr. Baalbaki has not but discovered whether or not the mausoleum was additionally broken, including that this was his “biggest worry”.

It might be like his mother and father “dying for a second time”, he mentioned.

His Odaisseh dwelling had a 2,000-book library and round 20 authentic artworks, together with work by his father, he mentioned.

His father had spent his life financial savings from his job as a college professor to construct the house.

The household had preserved “his desk, his palettes, his brushes, simply as he left them earlier than he died”, Mr. Baalbaki mentioned.

A portray he had been engaged on was nonetheless on an easel.

Shedding the home crammed him with “a lot disappointment” as a result of “it was a venture we had grown up with since childhood that enormously influenced us, pushing us to embrace artwork and the love of magnificence”.

‘Battle crime’

Lebanon’s Nationwide Human Rights Fee has mentioned “The continued destruction marketing campaign carried out by the Israeli Military in southern Lebanon is a conflict crime”.

Between October 2023 and October 2024, areas “have been wantonly and systematically destroyed in a minimum of eight Lebanese villages”, it mentioned, basing its findings on satellite tv for pc photographs and movies shared on social media by Israeli troopers.

Israel’s navy used “air strikes, bulldozers, and manually managed explosions” to degree complete neighbourhoods — properties, faculties, mosques, church buildings, shrines, and archaeological websites, the fee mentioned.

Lebanese rights group Authorized Agenda mentioned blasts in Mhaibib “destroyed the majority” of the hilltop village, “together with a minimum of 92 buildings of civilian properties and amenities”.

“You possibly can’t blow up a complete village as a result of you have got a navy goal,” mentioned Hussein Chaabane, an investigative journalist with the group.

Worldwide regulation “prohibits attacking civilian objects”, he mentioned.

Ought to civilian objects be focused, “the precept of proportionality ought to be revered, and right here it’s being violated”.