Palestine Chronicle – Aug 12, 2026

Key Takeaways

• Lebanese firefighters and residents say Israeli drones, flares and munitions have repeatedly ignited wildfires across southern Lebanon since the June ceasefire.
• Civil defense officials estimate fires have affected roughly 30 to 40 percent of land in some frontline areas.
• Environmental groups describe the destruction as “ecocide,” warning that it is damaging ecosystems, livelihoods and Palestinians’ and Lebanese residents’ ability to remain on their land.

Fires across South Lebanon

Firefighters, residents and environmental organizations in southern Lebanon have accused the Israeli military of deliberately igniting wildfires across the region, as repeated Israeli strikes have burned extensive areas of forest, agricultural land and centuries-old olive groves.

According to a report by The Guardian, Israeli occupation forces have continued using drones, flares and other munitions that have triggered fires across southern Lebanon despite the conditional ceasefire reached between Israel and the Lebanese government on June 17.

On Tuesday, Israeli forces dropped flares over a wooded area outside Khiam, setting vegetation alight, according to Hussein Fakih, head of civil defense in the Nabatieh region.

When firefighters approached the area to extinguish the blaze, an Israeli drone struck nearby and forced them to withdraw.

“Most of our missions are now related to fires,” Fakih told The Guardian.

“There are enormous areas of woodland that have burned, I don’t have the exact figures, but in the areas close to the (frontline), around 30-40% of the land has been affected by fires,” he added.

 

Fakih said the pattern began shortly after the ceasefire.

“They started doing this right after the ceasefire, and there have been incendiary bombs every day,” he said.

“Small drones come out and drop incendiary materials, (white) phosphorus shells are fired at the woodlands, in addition to illumination flares that they drop during the daytime so the vegetation catches fire.”

The Israeli military did not respond to The Guardian’s requests for comment regarding the individual wildfire incidents.

Firefighters Blocked from Reaching Blazes

Similar incidents have been reported across other parts of southern Lebanon.

On Friday, Israeli munitions reportedly ignited major fires in heavily wooded areas near Kfarchouba, close to the border, and between Jezzine and the western Bekaa Valley.

Samir Hardan, a local civil defense station chief, told The Guardian that a drone dropped a munition into forested land near Kfarchouba on Friday afternoon, starting a fire that crews battled through the night.

After firefighters extinguished the blaze on Saturday, another drone reportedly ignited a new fire on Sunday.

The ability of Lebanese firefighters to respond has also been constrained by the military situation, according to the report.

Civil defense teams must coordinate their movements through the Lebanese Army, which passes requests to a deconfliction mechanism involving Israeli forces.

Hardan said firefighters were granted permission to operate in only two locations, while fires continued burning elsewhere.

The result, according to first responders, has been the loss of large areas of forest and agricultural land that might otherwise have been saved.

‘A Pattern of Destruction’

Lebanese environmental organizations argue that the recent fires cannot be viewed as isolated incidents.

Hisham Younes, founder of the conservation organization Green Southerners, told The Guardian that Israel’s conduct amounted to “ecocide.”

The forests being destroyed include long-established ecosystems dominated by stone pine and oak trees and serve as an important corridor for migratory birds.

“These are long-established woodlands, dominated by productive stone pine alongside oak,” Younes said.

“They perform critical functions. The wider area is also an important passage and resting ground for migratory birds,” he added.

Younes argued that Israeli actions must be understood as part of a broader, sustained assault on southern Lebanon’s environment.

“It is not about any single fire or attack, but a pattern of destruction that progressively erodes the ability of ecosystems to function, regenerate and sustain life,” he said, adding:

“When those cascading effects also undermine livelihoods and people’s ability to return to and remain on their land, environmental destruction becomes inseparable from the wider transformation of the territory itself.”

Years of Environmental Attacks

The remarks fit into a broader history of Israeli military operations targeting wooded and agricultural areas in southern Lebanon since fighting intensified in October 2023.

Israel has claimed that Hezbollah uses forested terrain to conceal fighters, tunnels and military infrastructure.

Environmental and human rights groups, however, have repeatedly warned that methods used by Israeli occupation forces have caused widespread and potentially long-term ecological damage.

In the summer of 2024, Israeli troops were filmed using trebuchets — medieval-style catapults — to launch burning material across the border into Lebanon.

The Lebanese Army also published photographs of Israeli drones fitted with hoses that it said were being used to spray flammable substances over forests.

 

More recently, health and environmental experts raised concerns after Israeli aircraft reportedly sprayed herbicides linked to cancer over agricultural areas in southern Lebanon.

Such attacks, environmental groups argue, have consequences far beyond immediate military objectives, affecting food production, biodiversity, soil health and residents’ ability to return to their land.

‘They Are Erasing Our Entire History’

For residents of southern Lebanon, the destruction also carries a deeply personal and cultural cost.

On August 1, displaced residents of the border village of Yaroun discovered that Israeli troops occupying the area had burned remaining olive and fruit groves alongside damaged homes.

Residents of nearby Rmeich and Aïn Ebel documented fires spreading through the area.

“They had already bulldozed the whole village. Then they set fire to the trees,” Yaroun Mayor Hafez Ghasham told The Guardian.

“What remained in this particular area were the olive trees – large groves, with very old olive trees. They started there, then the fire spread along the outskirts of the village,” he also said.

Residents had already watched most of Yaroun disappear.

According to Ghasham, Israeli occupation forces bulldozed all but around 20 of the village’s approximately 900 homes, forcing displaced residents to pool money to purchase satellite imagery so they could follow the destruction from afar.

The olive trees that remained were not merely agricultural assets.

“Many of these trees, most of them, in fact, were inherited from our grandparents and parents,” Ghasham said. “They have enormous sentimental value. The trees were also an important source of income for the people of the village.”

For him, the destruction of the trees is part of a wider effort to sever residents from their land.

“They are trying to make the land uninhabitable,” he said. “They are erasing our entire history, our entire culture, all our memories. Maybe the idea is that after some time, it will look as though nobody had ever lived here.”

Source