Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon between October 2023 and December 2024 destroyed vast swathes of critical civilian infrastructure and public services, preventing tens of thousands of Lebanese from returning to their homes, Human Rights Watch said today.
Since the November 27 ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah came into effect, Israeli attacks have reportedly killed at least 57 people in Lebanon, including at least 26 who were attempting to return to villages that remain occupied by the Israeli military. As of February 5, 2025, nearly 100,000 people remain displaced in the country from the recent conflict, according to the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM). People affected by the war should be able to realize their rights to reparations, housing, education, electricity, water, and health care, among others.
Between October 2023 and December 2024, Israeli attacks in Lebanon killed more than 4,000 people and displaced over one million. Tens of thousands of housing units, businesses, and agricultural establishments across Lebanon have been damaged, according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP). Much of the damage was caused by the Israeli military's use of explosive weapons in populated areas.
"Israel's deliberate demolition of civilian homes and infrastructure and its use of explosive weapons in populated areas are making it impossible for many residents to return to their villages and houses," said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Even if their houses are still there, how can they return when there is no water, electricity, telecommunications, or health infrastructure?"
Mahdi Sadeq, who runs the Nabatieh Emergency Rescue Service Association, told Human Rights Watch that donors need to prioritize providing services that would enable residents to return and live in their villages.
In October 2024, donor countries pledged more than US$750 million in humanitarian aid to support Lebanon. But a November 2024 assessment by the World Bank estimated that war-related damages to "physical structures alone" amount to US$3.4 billion, with nearly 100,000 housing units across the country damaged or destroyed.
In November and December 2024, Human Rights Watch researchers visited the southern suburbs of Beirut and the southern Lebanese cities of Nabatieh and Tyre (Sour) and interviewed 12 residents, including town officials, first responders, school principals, waterworks employees, and store owners.
"For the last three days, we haven't been able to find anything to eat here," Sadeq told Human Rights Watch on November 30. "Stores and restaurants are gone, banks are gone, food stores are all gone, all pharmacies are gone."
A first responder in Nabatieh said: "Nobody can return now, where will they stay?"
The bombing and shelling of cities, towns, villages, and other populated areas has long-term indirect, or "reverberating," effects that can cause civilian harm years after conflicts end. Explosive weapons damage or destroy critical civilian infrastructure, which then interferes with the provision of public services, like health care and education, which in turn infringes on human rights.
"You need at least 4-5 years for economic life to resume here," said a store owner in Nabatieh's old souq (market), which was struck in an Israeli airstrike on October 12.
In Tyre, an Israeli strike on a water filtration and pumping station on November 18 disrupted water access to around 72,000 people in the city and its surrounding areas, two technicians at the South Lebanon Water Establishment, the public utility responsible for supplying water across southern Lebanon, told Human Rights Watch.
"All of Sour [Tyre] lost access to water," said Kassem Khalifeh, the utility's chief of supervision. "We had to deliver water by trucks in cooperation with international organizations."
While temporary adjustments to the water network restored water access to residents more than a month later, on December 25, the water station, which is the main water source for people in Tyre and the surrounding areas, "needs to be rebuilt from scratch," Khalifeh said.
In the southern suburbs of Beirut and in Nabatieh, Human Rights Watch researchers visited two schools that were heavily damagedfrom Israel's use of explosive weapons. Ali Awada, the principal of the Lycée de la Finesse school in Beirut's southern suburb, said that the post-war reconstruction efforts should also prioritize support for the rehabilitation of damaged schools, the purchase of new school equipment, and financial support with school tuitions for families impacted by the war.
Human Rights Watch found that, within a radius of less than 100 meters from the Lycée de la Finesse school complex, at least seven high-rise buildings were destroyed or had significant damage, as shown on satellite imagery throughout the month of November, starting on November 1.
The Israeli military issued multiple evacuation warnings through their Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, on November 1, 12, 20, and 26, highlighting some of the buildings that subsequently appeared destroyed on satellite imagery. A video posted on social media on November 12 and geolocated on Geoconfirmed, a volunteer-based geolocation platform, shows two Israeli strikes hitting one of these high-rise buildings.
The Israeli military said that the building closest to the school was a Hezbollah command center. That building appears severely damaged in satellite imagery recorded on December 2, while five of the high-rises appear to have been reduced to rubble. The Lycée de la Finesse school also appears damaged, with visible impact on its rooftop.
During their visit to the school, Human Rights Watch researchers found that in several classrooms, in addition to the school's auditorium and hallways, whole walls were missing and nearly all of the windows were shattered, with glass, debris, and dust covering the floors.
On January 13, 2025, Lebanon's new president, Joseph Aoun, designated Nawaf Salam, the former president of the International Court of Justice and Lebanon's ambassador to the UN from 2007 to 2017, to lead the new government, which was subsequently formed on February 7.
Lebanon's government should continue working with donors to provide support for reconstruction, conditioned on properly assessing and publishing the costs of the physical damage caused by the war, and regularly publishing information about funding allocations, expenditures, and outcomes. The new Lebanese government and donor countries should also put in place necessary measures to prevent the mismanagement of donor funds.
Human Rights Watch has documented a series of apparent war crimes and unlawful attacks by the Israeli military, including apparently deliberate attacks on journalists, peacekeepers, medics, and civilian objects, in addition to the unlawful use of booby-trapped devices and artillery-delivered white phosphorus in populated residential areas.
Attacks on northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights originating from Lebanon between October 2023 and November 2024 used several different types of explosive weapons, such as rockets, missiles, and projectiles, killing at least 30 civilians. A July 27 attack on the town of Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights also killed 12 children. While Israel claimed that it was a Hezbollah rocket attack, Hezbollah has denied responsibility. The strikes caused the displacement of more than 60,000 residents of northern Israel from their homes since October 2023, disrupting schooling for at least 16,000 students and causing significant infrastructure damage, according to media reports.
The UN Human Rights Council should urgently establish, and UN member countries should support, an international investigation into the recent hostilities in Lebanon and northern Israel. It should ensure that investigators are dispatched immediately to gather information and make findings as to violations of international law and recommendations for accountability for abuses committed by all parties. Lebanon's new government should also urgently give the International Criminal Court jurisdiction to enable the court's prosecutor to investigate grave international crimes.
"Without access to housing, water, and electricity, hundreds of thousands of people across Lebanon are continuing to suffer from the consequences of the war," Kaiss said. "As Lebanon continues to engage with donor countries on reconstruction efforts, it needs to prioritize rebuilding the critical infrastructure and the delivery of public services in a transparent, accountable, and corruption-free manner."
Damage to Civilian Infrastructure, Public Services
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has found that 83 educational institutions, 36 health facilities, 40 water facilities, 18 telecommunication facilities, and 36 public electricity facilities were damaged in the Nabatieh, Bint Jbeil, and Tyre districts in southern Lebanon as well as Baalbek and Baadba in northeastern and central Lebanon, respectively, in addition to 48 percent of business establishments in those areas.
In the Nabatieh district alone, more than 27 percent of educational institutions, 82 percent of public electricity facilities, and 33 percent of water facilities were reported to be damaged, according to UNDP, complicating residents' ability to return.
More than 27 percent of buildings in the Marjayoun district and nearly 15 percent of buildings in Bint Jbeil were damaged or destroyed, according to UN-Habitat.
According to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), one in three school-age children in Lebanon is out of school. UNICEF said that the government should prioritize education and commit to "equitable and efficient domestic public financing to ensure that every child, especially the most vulnerable, can access quality, safe and inclusive education."
According to Save the Children, at least 60 schools have been destroyed since September 2024, and nearly all schools in Lebanon were closed during the escalation of hostilities between September and November 2024, affecting up to 1.5 million children. Between September and November 2024, 77 percent of public schools were not operating due to their location in conflict zones or because they were repurposed as collective shelters for displaced people, Save the Children said.
More than 240 health workers have been killed, and at least 68 hospitals, 63 primary healthcare centers, and 177 ambulances have been damaged in Israeli attacks, according to Lebanon's Ministry of Public Health. Since October 2023, 47 percent of attacks on health care in Lebanon caused fatalities, a higher percentage than in any other currently active conflict, according to the World Health Organization.
