Lebanese Heritage Activist Documents Deliberate Destruction of 700-Year-Old Villages in Southern Lebanon
A Lebanese heritage NGO, Biladi, is documenting the systematic destruction of centuries-old villages in southern Lebanon following the 2024 Israel-Hezbollah conflict. The organization's founder, former journalist Joanne Bajjaly, describes the destruction as methodical and deliberate, targeting roads, homes, graveyards, mosques, churches, and the natural environment to sever communities from their history. The work highlights a broader global challenge of protecting cultural heritage during armed conflict, with implications for post-war reconstruction and community identity.
Biladi, a Lebanese NGO founded by heritage activist Joanne Bajjaly, has been documenting the destruction of traditional villages up to 700 years old in southern Lebanon following the two-month Israel-Hezbollah war in 2024. Bajjaly describes the damage as deliberate and methodical rather than incidental, designed to erase communities' links to their land and history by destroying not only buildings but also graveyards, religious sites, and the surrounding natural environment. Visual evidence from the affected areas shows massive rubble fields and damaged historic domed structures bearing bullet holes and structural deterioration. Biladi's work involves both relocating antiquities from at-risk areas and creating archives of lost heritage to inform reconstruction efforts and advocate for the inclusion of historical buildings in government rebuilding plans. Internationally, organizations such as Blue Shield International work with militaries including NATO forces to embed cultural property protection into military training and help establish no-strike lists that include heritage sites. Experts stress that while advanced technologies such as 3D modelling, drone footage, and AI-assisted documentation now allow rapid and detailed recording of damaged sites, full reconstruction remains costly, time-consuming, and may take generations. The destruction of cultural heritage is described as immediate and irreversible in the short term, with the broader community fabric around affected sites remaining fractured long after physical rebuilding begins.
What's missing
The article does not specify the total number of villages documented by Biladi, the estimated financial cost of reconstruction, or whether any international legal accountability mechanisms — such as referrals to the International Criminal Court for cultural property destruction as a war crime — are being pursued in relation to the damage in southern Lebanon.
What different sources said
- ABC AustraliaCenter
Villages 700 years old destroyed to 'uproot people' from their history
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