Tucked along Lebanon’s eastern border with Israel, inside the Israeli-occupied zone of southern Lebanon, the small Sunni-majority village of Kfarchouba carries a rare and painful distinction: unlike hundreds of thousands of neighboring residents who have been forcibly displaced from their homes, Israeli military authorities have allowed its population to remain on their ancestral land. But this permission to stay has come at a devastating cost, leaving the village’s people trapped in a permanent state of isolation, fear and economic collapse under harsh occupation rule.
In an interview with Middle East Eye, Kfarchouba’s 80-year-old mayor Qassem al-Adiri laid bare the brutal conditions imposed by Israeli forces on the community. He detailed how officials from Israel’s defense ministry directly contacted local tribal leaders to lay out non-negotiable terms for the village to avoid the mass destruction and expulsion that leveled nearby settlements. The core demand was unambiguous: no armed individuals or groups could be allowed to enter Kfarchouba, and any cooperation, sheltering or tolerance of armed presence would result in immediate expulsion and the total destruction of the village, matching the fate of neighboring communities.
As one of a small number of non-Shia villages falling inside Israel’s self-declared “yellow line” — a 600-square-kilometer occupied buffer zone stretching along the entire Lebanon-Israel border — Kfarchouba has formally distanced itself from Hezbollah, aligning its political and security standing with the official Lebanese government and national army. Even with this compliance, daily life for residents remains defined by systematic repression and pervasive uncertainty.
Al-Adiri confirmed that the village has maintained its pledge to Israeli forces, stating no armed individuals are present within Kfarchouba. This cooperation has done nothing to ease the occupation’s hardships: residents live under constant surveillance, face regular threats of military raids, arbitrary detention and coercive interrogation, and suffer severe movement restrictions that have cut off access to most of the village’s own agricultural lands.
“We can’t use our land, they don’t allow us. The mountains, the valleys, the orchards, the farmlands where we cultivate,” al-Adiri said, adding that boundaries for permitted movement are deliberately left unclear, with residents long barred from entering the southern half of the village entirely. In the village’s southeastern outskirts, he added, Israeli forces have seized and occupied evicted civilian homes to establish new temporary military outposts in strategically valuable positions.
Abductions of local residents by Israeli troops have become a frequent, terrifying occurrence in Kfarchouba and its outskirts. One of the deadliest incidents unfolded during a pre-dawn raid on Halta, a Kfarchouba outskirt, on March 24. Soldiers entered the area and abducted 35-year-old Shadi Karama Abdel Aal, alleging he had ties to Saraya al-Muqawama, a group linked to Hezbollah. During the operation, 15-year-old Mohammed Ali Abdel Aal stepped outside his home after hearing screams, and was fatally shot by an Israeli sniper. Another local resident, Ashraf Khalil al-Qadri, was wounded, and Israeli forces cordoned off the targeted home to block all access, preventing anyone from providing emergency first aid to the wounded.
Al-Adiri noted that this incident is far from isolated: during separate raids on Halta farm, which falls under Kfarchouba’s jurisdiction, Israeli troops abducted five local residents, three of whom were simply cutting grass for pasture in the nearby Rachaya al-Fakhar area, all of whom were subsequently accused of affiliation with Saraya al-Muqawama.
Israel’s broader military campaign across southern Lebanon has combined mass forced displacement with systematic large-scale destruction of civilian homes, infrastructure and agricultural land, leaving entire communities uninhabitable and wiping out long-standing local economic productive capacity. One particularly destructive tactic that has directly harmed Kfarchouba is the widespread starting of fires across southern Lebanon, targeting forests, olive groves and active farmland that leave large swathes of scorched, unusable land in their wake.
According to Lebanon’s National News Agency, Israeli military activity sparked a major fire in a wooded area of Kfarchouba on August 5 that spread rapidly toward Halta. The blaze burned uncontrolled for hours, as Israeli forces blocked Lebanese firefighting teams from reaching the affected area to contain the spread. Hussein Fakih, a firefighter based in nearby Nabatiyeh, told The Guardian that just six days later on August 11, Israeli forces started another fire using incendiary materials near Khiam, a Kfarchouba neighbor. When Lebanese fire crews moved in to extinguish the blaze, an Israeli drone carried out a strike in the immediate area, forcing the team to withdraw and abandon their efforts.
For Kfarchouba, an agricultural village that draws nearly all of its local income from olive groves and tobacco plantations, the destruction of farmland and restricted access have pushed the local economy to the brink of collapse. Even though the village was not labeled an active military target by Israel, it now faces crippling shortages of basic necessities, worsened by severe damage to core civilian infrastructure, particularly electricity and water networks.
Al-Adiri explained that the village’s main power grid has been completely cut off by Israeli forces, who have also refused to allow residents to carry out repairs. To access running water, locals are forced to power the village water pump using a private generator, which costs $300 per day in fuel and requires roughly 10 hours of continuous operation just to fill the village’s main water reservoir.
The village’s forced isolation has forced residents to drastically alter their daily consumption patterns, while severe restrictions on movement and transport have limited consistent access to food, medical supplies and incoming goods. Local shop owner Hasan Amro told Middle East Eye that the flow of people and goods into Kfarchouba has dropped off sharply, forcing residents to risk Israeli interception just to travel to the Bekaa Valley to source essential supplies.
“People who live outside the village used to come on weekends. Now we are living here but we feel like we are living in a big prison. We can’t come and go as we please,” Amro said. “We can’t go much farther to check on the olive trees. The olive harvest is approaching and we need to harvest the olives. Of course, this year we won’t be able to harvest again. We live surrounded by everything this place has to offer, but we can’t do anything. At this point, we can’t do anything.”
Amro added that residents have not been able to tend to their olive groves since the 2024 war between Israel and Hezbollah. While local efforts to bring supplies in from the Bekaa Valley have slightly improved access to provisions, this cannot replace the traditional cross-community trade that the village relied on with nearby settlements like Khiam and Kfar Kila, most of which have been completely destroyed by Israeli occupation forces.
“This war has been harder than the last one. We can’t bring supplies from the neighbouring villages, most of them were completely destroyed. The ones that haven’t been destroyed don’t want to come to us. Now we have someone who delivers supplies to our shop, and this is the first time he has come here since the beginning of the war. Before, we would go to the Bekaa to get supplies. It’s dangerous to travel on the roads at the moment,” Amro said.
Since ceasefire and border talks between Israel and Lebanon began in April, observers have noted that the Lebanese government holds little to no meaningful bargaining power to force a full Israeli withdrawal from occupied southern Lebanese territory. A US-brokered negotiating framework allows the Israeli military to maintain its presence in occupied south Lebanon until Hezbollah fully disarms and the Lebanese army assumes full control of the border zone — terms that Hezbollah has rejected as a demand for unconditional surrender.
Regional observers warn that the so-called “pilot zones” Israel has established in previously unoccupied areas, a move that contradicts official Israeli claims of drawing down its presence, have only served as a cover to expand Israeli occupation deeper into southern Lebanon. Recent Lebanese media reports confirm that Israel has already widened its occupied zone to include additional villages including Mansouri, Majdal Zoun, Haddatha and Braasheet, with ground forces advancing further inland toward Tibnin and Beit Yahoun.
Critics emphasize that the current US-brokered framework provides no meaningful protection for Lebanese civilians, both inside the occupied zone and in surrounding areas, from the ongoing threats and human rights abuses carried out by Israeli forces. Just last weekend, Israel intensified its military escalation in southern Lebanon, carrying out a series of air strikes on Ansar and Deir al-Zahrani that killed 11 people — including three children — and wounded 19 more. The attack marked the deadliest single incident since a June ceasefire agreement meant to reduce cross-border hostilities took effect.
