Where the Land Remembers

Under the steady hum of two Israeli drones, we arrived in Souaneh, a small village in South Lebanon’s Nabatieh governorate. Here, the sound of drones is no longer an interruption. It is a daily background. A ceiling of noise.

Aliyye, a 71-year-old Lebanese farmer, had left her nephew’s funeral earlier that day to welcome us. “He was killed last week by an Israeli drone. He was only 18,” she said. Loss is not new to her. Since the 1970s, Aliyye has lived through repeated cycles of invasion, occupation, displacement, and return. In the mid-1990s, she buried her nine-year-old daughter after the child picked up what looked like a toy in a nearby field. It was a boobytrap. The explosion killed her instantly and injured two of her siblings.

Agriculture has long formed the backbone of southern Lebanon. According to Lebanon’s Ministry of Agriculture, the sector contributes roughly to 9% of national GDP and 4% of Lebanon’s labourers. But in districts like the South, its social and economic weight is far greater due to Israeli aggressions.

According to the Lebanese Minister of Agriculture, the war between October 2023 and November 2024 caused an estimated USD 118 million in direct physical damage to the agricultural sector. The most affected areas were Southern Lebanon and the Bekaa, with crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries, and aquaculture all impacted.

The use of internationally prohibited white phosphorus alone destroyed more than 8,500 donums of agricultural and forest land and burnt over 60,000 ancient olive trees. The consequences were not limited to land. Since October 2023, 78% of farmers, beekeepers, poultry breeders, and cattle owners in the south have lost their primary source of income, according to ministry figures.

Economic collapse has compounded the damage. Since 2019, Lebanon’s financial crisis has caused currency devaluation, rising fuel prices, and soaring input costs. Fertilisers, seeds, and pesticides are now priced in dollars. Farmers who once managed modest seasonal investment, face costs that have doubled or tripled.

For villages like Souaneh, although many have since returned following the ceasefire, these numbers translate into visible absences: unharvested fields, empty barns, and silent apiaries. Aliyye has been farming since she was ten years old. Her father kept her and her sisters out of school. “He was afraid we would write love letters to boys,” she laughed. “If he had sent me to school, I would have helped him more in the market.”

She and her husband are both illiterate, but they insisted all ten of their children attend school, especially the girls. Some became teachers, nurses, and engineers, but none became farmers. “I wake up at dawn. I plant everything; tobacco, lentils, wheat, and radish. I only sell tobacco. The rest is for my household, for friends, and for family.” She moves quickly despite the pain in her back. “If I stop working, I get sick.”

Across South Lebanon, diversified farming is slowly being replaced by tobacco monoculture. Tobacco is one of the few crops guaranteed a buyer through the state-run “Régie Libanaise des Tabacs et Tombacs”. In an unstable economy, a guaranteed buyer means survival. Vegetables often rot unsold. Wheat brings little profit. Tobacco, though exhausting and chemically demanding, pays.

But the land pays too. “Tobacco depletes soil nutrients; calcium, nitrogen, potassium,” explained Dr. Sally Jaber, an environmental chemist and university lecturer. “Over time, biodiversity decreases and farmers become increasingly dependent on pesticides and chemical inputs. Recovery is possible but it requires rotation, investment, and monitoring.”

Beyond monoculture, there is the question of contamination. According to The Lancet magazine, Lebanon records one of the highest cancer incidence rates in the region. Cancer rates have risen steadily over the past two decades, due to pollution, smoking prevalence, pesticides overuse, and environmental contamination following years of war; including white phosphorus and heavy metal residues. “In almost every family here, there are two or three people with cancer,” Aliyye mentioned. “Most of what we eat comes directly from this land.”

Dr. Jaber explained that remnants from explosives and heavy metals, such as copper and zinc, can remain in soil for decades. “Some materials break down chemically into other toxic forms. Heavy metals do not disappear,” she said. “Rainwater can carry them into groundwater. Plants can absorb trace amounts, but this process is slow. Without systematic soil monitoring and remediation, contamination persists quietly and enters the food chain.” “Soil testing should not be a one-time post-war activity,” Dr. Jaber added.

“It requires sustained institutional commitment. Otherwise, contamination becomes normalised.” Lebanon has ministries responsible for environment and agriculture, and research institutions conduct periodic testing. But there is no unified long-term national monitoring system for post-conflict soil contamination. “In war,” she said, “the environment is never the priority. Farmers are left to manage invisible risks alone.”

Restrictions on farming are now new. Aliyye remembers the 1980s and 1990s differently. “Back then, Israeli soldiers came into the village,” she said. “They burned our tractors when they didn’t find anyone to arrest.” Movement was restricted, checkpoints determined who could reach fields, and farmers were often harassed. “The threat was face to face,” she said. “Now it is in the sky.” When the drones hover overhead, farmers hesitate to go out. “When it rains, they rarely fly,” she added. “We take advantage of the rain and farm then.”

As we spoke, her brother Mohammad approached on his tractor. “This is the tractor I told you about,” she said. “The one that stepped on a mine.” In 2006, when cluster munitions blanketed the South, his tractor hit unexploded ordnance buried in the field. The explosion injured his leg and left shrapnel in his back until this day. He stayed home for four months before returning to work. He repaired the tractor himself after that.

Before the 2006 war, thousands of families in the South cultivated their land full time. But after the war, that rhythm fractured. The United Nations Mine Action Coordination Centre (UNMACC), estimated that more than one million unexploded cluster bomblets were scattered across southern Lebanon in 2006 alone. Lebanon became one of the most heavily cluster-contaminated countries per capita at the time. Vast stretches of agricultural land were rendered inaccessible. Many fields remained inaccessible for months, even years. “You give the land, and the land gives you back,” he said. “But if you leave it alone, it weakens and dies slowly.”

Mohammad fears that when he dies, his land will remain untended. “I learned farming from my father who learnt it from my grandfather. I tried teaching it to my children, but they weren’t interested,” he added with frustration. “They do not want to farm. It dies with our generation.”

He glanced at his watch and smiled apologetically. “I came back to eat breakfast, then return to work.” it was nearly 2 p.m. Farming here is not only threatened by shelling or drones. It is constrained by cost. Fertiliser prices have surged since Lebanon’s financial collapse. Diesel for irrigation pumps is expensive. Labour costs have increased as young people migrate.

Dr. Iman Mansour, a sociologist and researcher, describes what is unfolding in the South as a slow fracture between declared identity and lived reality. “For decades, the land represented existential security,” she explained. “It provides food, income, and a sense of belonging. When it becomes associated with danger and uncertainty, attachment does not disappear, but it becomes conflicted.”

“Repeated wars normalise instability,” she added. “Families begin adjusting their expectations downward. Long-term projects are postponed. Investment declines. Young people leave and invest ambitions elsewhere.”

She calls this process social erosion. “That uncertainty reshapes behaviour. Families invest less in infrastructure, and young people invest less in agriculture,” Dr. Mansour said. “Yes, the emotional attachment remains, but strategic commitment weakens.”

“The risk is not only losing land legally or physically,” she added. “It is losing it as a shared space of meaning; a space that produces relationships, memory, and continuity. What we are witnessing is the slow thinning of a rural social fabric.”

Displacement in South Lebanon has never been linear. Since the 1978 Israeli invasion, villages have emptied and refilled repeatedly: 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996, 2006, and 2024. Aliyye gave birth to two of her children during separate Israeli invasions. She has fled her home dozens of times and rebuilt it each time. “Even if the house is destroyed, this is our land,” she said. “Where else would we go?”

In her yard, she insisted we eat before continuing. Dandelion greens picked that morning. Olive oil pressed from her trees. She still prepares winter provisions; dried thyme, kishk, and olives, though her hands tire more quickly now. “You must eat,” she said, wrapping sandwiches in paper and pressing them into our hands. Over our heads, drones continued their circular path, buzzing loudly. Aliyye once encountered a cluster munition while picking wild thyme with her daughter. It detonated at a distance. Her daughter sat down and froze in shock, reliving the earlier explosion that had killed her sister.

Some fields are now approached cautiously. Others remain untouched. In South Lebanon, farming once shaped kinship networks, seasonal rhythms, and shared labour. As young people migrate and cattle disappear, villages risk losing not only crops, but collective memory. Families once gathered in the fields, in the evenings. They shared labour, water, shisha and conversation. Now, many hesitate to linger outdoors.

“They want us to leave,” Aliyye concluded, adjusting her headscarf and looking toward the fields. “But as long as we have land, we will stay.” The drones did not leave.  But neither did she. This visit took place weeks before another war erupted across Lebanon. Since then, Aliyye and her family have once again been displaced

Reporting Lebanon is a collaborative storytelling project that brings together independent Lebanese journalists to document everyday life in a country shaped by war, displacement, and prolonged instability. Through in-depth reportages and narrative-driven features, the project focuses on the human, social, and psychological realities that have unfolded in the aftermath of the 2023–2024 escalation – at a time when violence has formally subsided in parts of the country, yet insecurity and uncertainty persist. Rather than offering situational reports, Reporting Lebanon prioritizes long-form journalism that stays close to its protagonists. The project seeks to capture how people experience, remember, and endure war – and how its consequences continue to shape daily life long after the headlines fade. Reporting Lebanon is a cooperation between the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) and zenith.