‘Everything is gone’: Israel destroys entire villages in Lebanon ... Rights groups fear tactic of ‘domicide’ trialled in Gaza, where entire areas are made uninhabitable, is being used again

Smoke rises from explosions induced by Israeli military activities on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese village of Al Taybeh.  Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Sun 12 Apr 2026

Rights groups fear tactic of ‘domicide’ trialled in Gaza, where entire areas are made uninhabitable, is being used again

By William Christou and Abbas Abdel Karim in Beirut and Lucy Swan

The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations.

The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims.

The demolitions came after Israel’s minister of defence, Israel Katz, called for the destruction of “all houses” in border villages “in accordance with the model used in Rafah and Beit Hanoun in Gaza” to stop threats to communities in northern Israel. The Israeli military destroyed 90% of homes in Rafah, in south Gaza.

The tactic of mass destruction of homes in Gaza, where Israel has been accused of committing genocide, was described as domicide by academics, a strategy that is used to systematically destroy and damage civilian housing to render entire areas uninhabitable... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/12/how-israeli-offensive-destroyed-entire-villages-in-lebanon?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

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Death, displacement and military duties: children plunged into crisis by Middle East war. The US-Israeli war will have a lifelong impact on millions of children across the Middle East

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/04/children-us-israel-iran-war-middle-east 

Displaced children arrange a bouquet of flowers outside their tent in a carpark in Beirut’s waterfront area. Photograph: Ibrahim Amro/AFP/Getty Images

Unicef’s representative to Lebanon, Marcoluigi Corsi, warned last month that displacement would have lasting effects on the children. “This relentless cycle of bombardment and displacement is severely compounding their psychological scars, embedding deep-seated fear and threatening profound, long-term emotional harm,” said Corsi.

Ahmed said he has already seen some of these effects in his own children. When Israeli jets break the sound barrier or bomb Beirut, his son starts to run, trying to hide from a bomb he thinks will land on him.

Ahmed himself is exhausted. He had to leave his wife and 17-year-old daughter in the hospital in Tyre after they were injured in the bombing of their house. He shows a picture of his comatose wife in a hospital bed, counting her ailments: Skull fractured in 33 places, internal bleeding, spinal injuries.

“They say she won’t make it,” Ahmed said, looking at his children. “The children are kept busy now, they’re playing. But when they come home and don’t find their mother there, it will be a disaster.”

Deaths, injuries and mourning in Palestine

Despite a ceasefire which is now more than five months old, health officials in Gaza say at least 50 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the Iran conflict began more than a month ago. The number of child fatalities is unclear but on 29 March Israeli airstrikes on checkpoints killed at least six Palestinians, including a girl, according to local rescue services.

The Gaza Strip has not recovered from 23 months of Israeli bombardment, which killed tens of thousands of people and destroyed hospitals and schools in what a UN investigation found to be a genocide. Up until October last year, an average of at least one Palestinian child was being killed every hour. The number of children killed by Israeli forces in its war on Gaza surpassed 20,000 late last year, according to Save the Children.

While the Iran war did not open a new front in Gaza, it has deepened insecurity and resulted in an intensification of ongoing Israeli military operations... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/04/children-us-israel-iran-war-middle-east

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‘My heart is broken’: Palestinians begin searching the Gaza rubble for their dead. Using manual tools and their bare hands, people start the immense task of trying to find their loved ones’ remains

The destruction left by Israel’s offensive on Gaza City. Photograph: Amjed Tantesh/The Guardian

 Seham Tantesh in Gaza and William Christou in Jerusalem

Sun 12 Oct 2025

Ghali Khadr spent two days pleading with his parents to flee with him to southern Gaza, warning them that it was too dangerous to stay. His father, known for being stubborn, refused. Their argument was never finished – an Israeli airstrike hit his father’s home, burying his parents beneath the rubble.

On Sunday, two days after the ceasefire was announced, Khadr returned to search through the ruins of his parents’ home. He spent the day sifting through shattered concrete and twisted metal for any sign of them. All he managed to find were some shards of their skulls and parts of their hands.

“My father, a retired ambulance driver, was known for his strong will and patience. He did not know fear and was always optimistic,” said Khadr, 40, of Jabaliya in northern Gaza.

Khadr took the remains of his parents to the graveyard, but found that it too had been destroyed. He decided to bury them next to the few graves that were still intact. 

Like Khadr, thousands of Palestinians have returned to northern Gaza since Friday’s ceasefire with a grim task ahead of them: searching for loved ones killed weeks or months earlier in Israeli airstrikes and whose bodies are buried under the rubble.

Gaza’s civil defence agency estimates that the bodies of about 10,000 people are trapped under the debris and collapsed buildings. The halt in the fighting has given the ambulance service the chance to finally start the search for the dead and give their families a chance at closure.

The task ahead of the rescuers is immense given an estimated 60m tonnes of rubble across the territory.

Most roads have been destroyed or blocked by debris. Civil defence workers are short of heavy equipment and have to use pickaxes and sledgehammers to break through collapsed buildings. Rescue crews have to move slowly. The debris is also full of unexploded bombs and ordnance.

“At first, we are focusing on... " READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/12/my-heart-is-broken-palestinians-begin-searching-the-gaza-rubble-for-their-dead?CMP=share_btn_url

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