NPR visits the first of what are meant to be a series of pilot zones in south Lebanon, where the Lebanese army has taken charge after an Israeli pullout.

Transcript

SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:

In Lebanon, a U.S.-brokered plan for Lebanese forces to assume security there appears to be faltering. NPR’s Jane Arraf and Jawad Rizkallah went to the first and, so far, only pilot zone in the south where Hezbollah was driven out. Israeli troops withdrew and the Lebanese Army moved in, allowing some residents to return.

JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: We’re waiting at a Lebanese Army checkpoint to be allowed into the village of Zawtar al-Gharbiyah.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).

ARRAF: Soldiers approve each car that goes in. From here, we can see a strategic hilltop, where Israel is still attacking what it says are Hezbollah positions, and we can hear the explosions.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).

(SOUNDBITE OF TWO EXPLOSIONS)

ARRAF: And that was a really big boom, another airstrike in the location near Ali al-Taher Hill, where Israel says it detonated a series of tunnels in the Hezbollah Command Center recently. There are huge plumes of smoke rising from a village quite close to the hill. It’s a couple of miles from where we are, but it’s the fourth or fifth airstrike we’ve seen and heard since we’ve been here at this Lebanese Army checkpoint over the last half hour.

Lebanon says ongoing Israeli attacks are the reason that the Lebanese Army has so far taken control of only part of one village. There’s a ceasefire in place, but the U.N. peacekeeping mission says, while Hezbollah has largely held its fire, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes a day.

(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSION)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Non-English language spoken).

ARRAF: As we enter the village, there are more Israeli airstrikes nearby. There’s so much destruction here. The mayor says more than half the houses have been destroyed or heavily damaged, some in Israeli airstrikes, others when Israel bulldozed and detonated homes after the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in June. Israel’s defense minister has said his forces have destroyed 15,000 homes in Southern Lebanon to create what Israel calls a buffer zone.

At the edge of town, a woman and a young girl walk through a mountain of broken concrete and twisted metal. Fatima asked NPR not to use her last name, fearing that speaking to the media could lead to retaliation against her family. She’s bringing lunch for her husband and workers who are using a bulldozer to clear the rubble. Israeli drones buzz overhead.

FATIMA: (Non-English language spoken).

ARRAF: “This was my husband’s cousin’s house, my brother-in-law’s house. That was my uncle’s house, and our house was here,” she says. All of them are gone.

(SOUNDBITE OF METAL CLANGING)

ARRAF: Her husband’s furniture and decor shop in the next village was destroyed. Almost everything they own is gone.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Non-English language spoken).

ARRAF: But from a suitcase found under the rubble, Fatima shows her now 8-year-old daughter Noor an infant’s onesy, white with tiny flowers.

FATIMA: (Non-English language spoken).

ARRAF: “This was my daughter’s when she was a month old,” she says. “I kept all my children’s mementos from when they were little. They’re all gone. Their toys, their memories, everything. But we found this.”

Cross town, Mayor Abed Ezzeddine (ph) is living in his son’s damaged house. His own was destroyed. His grandson plays next to him. As he tells us, he returned just after the Lebanese Army cleared explosives left behind.

ABED EZZEDDINE: (Through interpreter) When we came back, I didn’t recognize the turnoff to my house. The features of the land had changed.

ARRAF: The plan was that the Lebanese government would rebuild infrastructure for residents. That didn’t happen. There’s still no electricity or running water. Ezzeddine says Israeli forces bulldozed the village’s only well, along with the connecting water pipes. Israel did not reply to an NPR request for comment.

EZZEDDINE: (Through interpreter) People are anxious because things are unstable, but we want to stay. These are our homes, our land, our livelihood.

ARRAF: Ezzeddine says about 1/5 of the village’s roughly 500 families have returned. Everyone wants to come back, he says, but between the lack of security and lack of services, they have almost nothing to come back to.

Jane Arraf, NPR News, in Zawtar al-Gharbiyah, Southern Lebanon.

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