Keeping the Land Alive: Farmers on the Front Line of the War Over Southern Lebanon’s Borderlands

When Ghaleb Hajj, 43, returned to the southern Lebanese village of Houla in April, he found his wheat crops flattened and spoiled. No one had been around to harvest the barley and lentils, so they rotted in the fields. Before fleeing the area, he had released his cows and goats, hoping they might survive the deadly Israeli bombardment and find food, but none returned. Hajj is certain they are dead.

Inside his house, heavy shelling destroyed the furniture, shattered the windows, and tore the doors from their hinges. It seemed that the Israeli occupation had spared no field, animal, person, or stone.

Hajj’s life today hardly resembles the one he had before the war. Israeli forces burned his olive groves with white phosphorus; it will be years before he can harvest their fruits. Cleaning the debris and preparing the soil for planting costs more than he can afford. He still works as a shepherd, but now herds other peoples’ animals rather than his own. He tries to stay within 500 meters of his home, afraid of getting targeted by the Israeli occupation if he goes further south. His fears are not unfounded: In mid-June, an Israeli drone strike killed local beekeeper Mohammad Nasrallah as he tended his hives close to where Hajj once grazed his animals.

“The buzz of drones overhead is constant,” Hajj told The Public Source. “May God protect us.”

Despite the cessation of hostilities agreement that Lebanon and Israel reached in November 2024, the Zionist entity has continued to wage a campaign of low-level military and economic warfare against residents of border villages like Houla. 

The hardships Hajj has faced since his return — economic destitution, limited movement, and the loss of his crops — reflect the state of thousands of Lebanese food producers living and working near the Blue Line, a 120-kilometer-long withdrawal line demarcated by the UN after Israel was forced out of the South in 2000. Today, the Israeli regime is threatening to seize land and create a buffer zone in the South.

Israeli forces are occupying seven border outposts in the South — in Labbouneh, Jabal Blat, Jal al-Deir, Markaba-Houla road, Mahafir Hill, Hamames Hill and along the border wall near Kfar Kila — and using drones, artillery fire, and kidnappings to block farmers from reaching their fields. The Lebanese army has not always been able or willing to escort southerners to areas it considers susceptible to attack, while UNIFIL, the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, has not guaranteed even minimal protection. International donors are using recovery aid as a bargaining chip to force Hezbollah’s disarmament, depriving farmers like Hajj of the funds they desperately need to rebuild.

Ghaleb Hajj’s life today hardly resembles the one he had before the war. Israeli forces burned his olive groves with white phosphorus; it will be years before he can harvest their fruits.

Since he was a boy, Hajj made a living from the land. He produced dairy with his cows and goats and sold olive oil, barley, wheat, and lentils directly from his farm in Houla. The farm supported his wife, three sons, two daughters, and his herd. Before the war, Hajj lived a self-sufficient, dignified life.

“Ask anyone about me,” Hajj told The Public Source. “I was a well-known farmer.” 

In December 2023, two months after Hamas’ al-Aqsa Flood operation and Hezbollah’s decision to open a “support front,” Hajj’s family moved to a displacement shelter in Beirut. When they finally returned to Houla, they couldn’t afford new furniture. They laid mattresses on the floor and stored their clothes in nylon bags. His older sons, in their early 20s, struggle to find work, while Hajj scours the rubble for scrap metal to sell. A neighbor gave him two goats — a small lifeline that provides milk and cheese.

“I was born between goats and cows, and I want to die here, in my hometown,” said Hajj. “We don’t even have the money to leave or survive anywhere else.”

Grazing Under the Threat of Drones

The village of Chebaa sits on the western slopes of Mount Hermon, near the point where Lebanon, the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and Syria meet. The terrain is rugged and sparsely populated. Patches of shrubs and trees break up the dry landscape, and houses line the valleys unevenly, following the contours of the earth. At 1,700 meters above sea level, Chebaa is often cloaked in snow in winter.

Khodor Zahra, 40, says he knows every inch of this land. For more than a decade, he has guided his goats across the steep slopes east of Kfarchouba, toward the peak of Mount Hermon, and south toward the farmlands near the Blue Line. Zahra’s parents, uncles, and cousins are also shepherds; in Chebaa, it is one of the few ways to make a living.

Before the war, Zahra, father to four teenagers, had been nurturing a new venture: cactus farming. The fruit is popular in Greater Beirut neighborhoods like Bourj Hammoud, and he had calculated that the 14 dunams he planted would bring in about $7,000 a year. In the two years leading up to the war, he tended to his prickly pears weekly, irrigating them and applying a special fertilizer that costs $15 a packet. He hoped to harvest by August 2024, but the war forced him to abandon his land and flee north.

“The cactus fruits turned to ashes. The fields completely dried out,” Zahra said.

Like thousands of farmers and shepherds across the South, Zahra has faced a new reality since returning to Chebaa late last year: he wants to rehabilitate and cultivate his land, but regular Israeli attacks and incursions are preventing him from reaching it. Shelling has made it impossible for him to safely visit his cactus farm near Kfarhammam or his beehives near Bostara Farms. He has also been unable to tend to his orchard — full of walnut, cherry, pear, pomegranate, and peach trees — and this year it yielded nothing.

Unable to harvest crops or keep bees, Zahra now relies on goat milk to get by. Before the war, he had about 30 goats for dairy production, including a French goat he bought for $550.

“Some ran away, some died from the bombs’ toxic fumes or from starvation, and others were probably eaten by wild animals,” he said.

To rebuild his herd and earn some money, he sold a small piece of land to buy a few new goats, and his mother sold her gold to repair their small dairy plant. But even herding the goats is dangerous these days.

On the morning of June 10, local herder Mohammad Kanaan and his two sons, Wael and Hadi, were herding cattle in the outskirts of Chebaa when the Israeli occupation targeted them with a drone strike. Mohammad and Wael died instantly, and Hadi was seriously wounded.

“Why would they target shepherds? We have no idea,” said Fadia Kanaan, Mohammad’s sister and a resident of the southern village of Dimachqiyeh. “My brother and his son were just trying to make ends meet when they were killed in cold blood.”

The area where the Israeli military killed the Kanaans was well-known grazing land. According to Fadia, shepherds no longer go there, fearing they might meet the same fate as the Kanaans.

Caught Between Mandates and Reality

The Lebanese army (LAF) has not protected farmers from repeated Israeli attacks. On its website, the LAF states that its first mission is to “defend the nation’s borders against any external attack.” This includes “constant readiness to face the Israeli enemy and to promptly confront its attacks and aggressions with all available means,” as well as “preserving the stability of the regions at the southern borders and protecting them from saboteurs as well as supporting the resistance of the citizens in their villages.”

In practice, however, the army is heavily reliant on funding from the United States and does not have the weapons or means to confront the Israeli occupation. Under the current ceasefire, which calls for the full implementation of the 2006 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, the LAF’s role has been mostly limited to increasing its presence along the southern border and dismantling Hezbollah’s weapons capacity.

The Lebanese army cannot act against Israeli aggressions without a political order from the government. And since most of the army’s funding and training come from the U.S., Lebanon is restricted from acquiring advanced weapons.

Because Mohammad Kanaan’s son Wael was a soldier, Brig. Gen. Hussein Tabaja and Army Commander Gen. Rodolphe Haikal attended the funeral. Beyond that, Fadia said, the family has not been contacted by the Lebanese state.

In a phone interview, a Lebanese army source said the army helps southern farmers by checking for mines or unexploded ordnance on their land and sending teams to remove them if needed. When farmers ask for guidance about accessing their fields, the army assesses the situation and either warns them that it’s too dangerous or, if deemed safe, escorts them to the area.

“We are abiding by UN Resolution 1701, which calls for a halt to hostilities,” the army source said. “We are committed from our side, but Israel is not.”

Retired army general Ali Abi Raad told The Public Source that the Lebanese army cannot act against Israeli aggressions without a political order from the government.

“The first step is for the government to allocate a budget to equip the army,” Abi Raad said. Since most of the army’s funding and training come from the U.S., he added, Lebanon is restricted from acquiring advanced weapons.

In the absence of state support, some farmers have petitioned UNIFIL for security and assistance when accessing their land, but the mission’s liaison mechanism with the Israeli army is limited and far from guaranteed.

“We don’t always get the green light from the Israelis,” UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told The Public Source. “It’s not completely in our hands. But we’ve done it, and we’ll keep doing it when we can.”

Most of the time, Tenenti said, the Israeli army offers no explanation for its strikes on civilians or for rejecting farmers’ requests to access their land, apart from citing vague “security concerns.”

In early May, Agriculture Minister Nizar Hani met with UNIFIL commander Maj. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro to negotiate safer access for farmers in the border areas. After several rounds of talks, UNIFIL finalized a coordinated plan with the Lebanese army, the Ministry of Agriculture, and UN peacekeepers to allow farmers back onto their land. The ministry urged farmers with property near the Blue Line to coordinate with its local offices before going.

This kind of coordination often leaves southerners with an agonizing choice: stay away from their land indefinitely, or go alone and risk being targeted.

Israeli forces are occupying seven border outposts in the South and using drones, artillery fire, and kidnappings to block farmers from reaching their fields.

Before the Israeli occupation killed him, Mohamed Nasrallah contacted a Ministry of Agriculture regional office to ask whether it was safe to reach his beehives. After negotiations with UNIFIL, the office advised him against going. He decided to venture out anyway.

This year, Israel and the United States pushed to end the UNIFIL’s mission in southern Lebanon. On August 28, 2025, the UN Security Council voted to phase out UNIFIL’s mandate over the next two years. Without the peacekeeping mission, even the limited safety measures available to southerners will cease to exist.

“The Israelis are dangerously close,” Zahra said. “They shoot anyone who approaches. If we die today, no one will ask about us.”

No Relief on the Way

For months after the ceasefire, Khalil Hamdan, 59, returned to his hometown of Mays al-Jabal once a week to check on his land. The 10 dunams of tobacco fields that once earned him $10,000 a year have withered. An Israeli airstrike reduced to rubble the three-story house he built for himself, his wife, and his three sons.

Hamdan had spent much of his adult life tending to his trees, some older than the Zionist state. He grew olive, fig, pomegranate, apple, peach, almond, quince, and loquat. During the war, Israeli bombing uprooted much of his orchard, and now more than a dozen trees lay on their sides, scorched beneath the summer sun.

Even so, those brief visits brought him some relief.

After the 2006 war with Israel, which caused $2.8 billion in damage across the country, Arab donors contributed nearly $700 million to Lebanon’s reconstruction. Saudi Arabia, the largest contributor, funded the rebuilding of 219 southern villages, the reconstruction of Beirut’s southern suburbs, bridges, and public schools, while Qatar focused on rebuilding four southern towns — Bint Jbeil, Khiam, Aita al-Chaab, and Ainata. A French-hosted international conference raised an additional $7.6 billion for infrastructure.

This time, the devastation is far greater and the economic losses much higher. The World Bank’s rapid damage assessment, conducted between October 2023 and December 2024, estimates Lebanon needs about $11 billion to rebuild, compared to $3.6 billion in 2006. Regional tensions between Hezbollah and Gulf states make large-scale donations unlikely. Some local reports suggest donors are using reconstruction funds as leverage to pressure Hezbollah to relinquish its weapons.

“Depriving civilians of recovery and reconstruction funds is a form of collective punishment,” said Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy director for research at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, in an interview.

So far, the only major funding the Lebanese government has secured is a $200 million World Bank loan, approved on July 1 by joint parliamentary committees, to finance the Green Agri-Food Transformation for Economic Recovery program. Of that amount, $71 million will support farmers and cooperatives through subsidies, access to seeds and tools, and training in sustainable farming. The Ministry of Agriculture has not finalized how it will distribute the grants. Wafaa Dikah, advisor to the minister, said it will likely be matching grants, with farmers contributing a share.

A recent report estimates farmers in the South and the Beqaa sustained $704 million in damages and losses between October 2023 and November 2024.

On July 4, the Ministry of Agriculture launched a separate project to provide technical support to farmers growing apples and vegetables, with backing from Canada and Switzerland and in partnership with the FAO. But farmers we spoke to said that before technical support, they need money to rebuild.

“The ministry doesn’t offer cash assistance,” Dikah said. “It doesn’t have a budget for that.” Instead, aid comes as guidance, agricultural inputs like seeds and fertilizers, or access to subsidized loans. While projects are not limited to southern Lebanon, the ministry can prioritize the region in coordination with international donors.

“We’re working tirelessly to direct aid toward the South. It’s our responsibility,” Dikah said. When asked why no programs are dedicated solely to the South, the ministry declined to comment, noting that “the bigger challenge lies in the overall delay of reconstruction aid.”

Mohammad Ayoub, founder and director of the environmental advocacy NGO NAHNOO, blames the Lebanese state for failing to establish a postwar response plan or budget and for relying entirely on foreign aid.

“Our main caretaker is supposed to be the government,” Ayoub said. “Ministries claim they can’t act because they don’t have funds, then relinquish responsibility as they wait for the money to come.”

The South Lebanon Council, a governmental institution responsible for reconstruction and development projects in the south, declined to comment on reconstruction plans or whether farmers can expect compensation for agricultural damages. Architect Hajj Saleem Mrad of Jihad al-Binaa said they are still registering farmers’ losses and it is “too early to talk about compensation.”

Restoring the Soil

Hadi Awada grew up in Hazmieh, a suburb of Beirut, but spent his childhood summers with his grandmother in Kfar Kila, a village along the Blue Line. He was just one year old on his first visit in 2001, a year after the South was liberated from Israeli occupation. Though his family didn’t farm, his uncle loved tending citrus, pine, and fig trees.

As he grew older, he felt suffocated by city life. As he grew older, he felt suffocated by city life. He longed for quiet mornings and a life closer to nature — the life he had glimpsed in Kfar Kila. Though he wasn’t interested in attending university, his family insisted that he not settle in Kfar Kila without a formal education.

“I told myself I’d start elsewhere, gain agricultural knowledge, and eventually return to my village — the land will still be there,” he recalled.

Awada took courses in sustainable agriculture, worked on farms across Lebanon, and partnered with Buzuruna Juzuruna, a collective of agroecologists and farmworkers collecting and cultivating local heirloom seeds. By late 2022, he returned to Kfar Kila and started worm composting to produce natural, chemical-free fertilizer, hoping to offer farmers in the South an alternative to chemical-heavy commercial methods.

“I didn’t grow up here, but I feel connected to the South,” he said. “People here are deeply attached to their land, even after the occupation and the war.”

Retired LAF general Abi Raad said Israeli forces plan to create a buffer zone along Lebanon’s far southwestern border, from Naqoura through Chamaa, Markaba, Bint Jbeil, Khiam, Chebaa to Mount Hermon in the southeast. The zone is expected to extend 3 to 5 kilometers into Lebanese territory — effectively establishing a new occupation that would empty the region of its people.

“They do not want to leave one stone in that land,” Abi Raad said.

For the people of Chebaa, time is running out, Zahra warned. At this altitude, harsh winters make summer work crucial. Goat milk disappears by fall, when animals stop producing until March. Shepherds no longer know where to graze their goats and now have to buy fodder, adding another financial burden.

“We’re like ants, working in summer, resting in winter,” Zahra said. “But we may have no choice but to sell our livestock, because we need the money to care for our families.”

Left on their own, Zahra and other farmers in the border villages continue to work their land. When asked what he would do if he left Chebaa and his livestock, Zahra replied, half-joking: “A concierge, maybe?”

Most farmers have few alternatives. They have returned to rebuild their herds and tend to their fields, knowing that their presence keeps the land alive.

Khalil Hamdan, the farmer from Mays al-Jabal, finally moved back to his hometown in late August after renting a house with money he saved. He kept the Nabatieh home, where they were displaced, as a backup in case another war breaks out. For now, he hopes for a stable future in his village, where his children will attend school this year.

“People are ready to plant everything again,” Hamdan said. “Life will certainly return.”