Loading...BEIRUT, Lebanon — The images unfold slowly on Mazen Farah's phone —satellite views of the Christian section of the southern Lebanese village of Yaroun.
They are a bit fuzzy but still clear enough to see what is happening."This is what it shows from the satellite — it shows that it has been destroyed," says Farah, referring to the two-story stone house his father built after 25 years of working in the Gulf.In March, amid renewed fighting with the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, Israel launched airstrikes and displaced hundreds of thousands of residents in more than 100 villages.After an April 17 ceasefire, Israel sent in bulldozers to demolish more buildings in southern Lebanon.It says it is targeting Hezbollah infrastructure but rarely provides details or evidence to support those claims.Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in March his country intended to depopulate all Lebanese villages near the border with Israel in order to permanently remove any threats to citizens in northern Israel and form what Israel calls a "buffer zone." Israel prevents the displaced from returning, even to visit.
And residents of neighboring villages fear Israeli retaliation for taking video or photos.So residents of Yaroun and other communities are pooling their money to buy commercial satellite images to determine if their houses are still standing."Either somebody each time will buy it or we have to get the funds in a certain account and buy it," Farah says of the images.
Each image costs at least $112.But more often than not, the satellite provider tells them it can't provide images for the specific locations they are seeking and eventually refunds their money.In April, some satellite companies declined to provide images of Lebanon and other countries at the request of the U.S.
government.Geryes Saloum, a municipal employee, built a three-bedroom home in Yaroun 10 years ago.All the houses around it have been destroyed."Every day, I wait for a pictur...