Maysa Moghuni’s childhood home in southern Lebanon was the culmination of decades of work. She told how her father spent most of his life building a palatial home in the village of Burj Lahar, room by room. “All the memories we have are of him building this house,” said Moghni, a dual American-Lebanese citizen. She currently lives in Irvine, California, where she is raising her children.
Video footage of her twin sister’s engagement party two years ago, filled with joy and music, shows what a wonderful house it was. It was a three-story building with traditional stone walls, a pitched red brick roof, and an ornate stone-columned balcony. The piece de resistance was a massive split staircase that descended to a spacious terrace. In the video, the family and guests are seen dancing.
It was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on May 9, and all of it is now gone. Although there was a ceasefire on paper, in reality the Israeli military continued to attack and Hezbollah continued to attack with rockets. Images taken by her sister after the attack show the trajectory of the projectile, tearing through the floor one after another, leaving large holes covered in a thick layer of white dust.
Coincidentally, my parents and sister had left home three days before the strike because my mother couldn’t sleep. “My mother couldn’t stand the really annoying sounds like drones and airplanes anymore,” she said. They learned about the strike through their neighbors.
Moghni is one of several American citizens who told CNN their family’s home was destroyed in the war against Hezbollah, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says is targeting enemy positions. About 18,000 homes have been destroyed since fighting resumed in March after Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel following US and Israeli attacks on Iran, according to a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) assessment released in June.
Even after a nominal ceasefire took effect in April, Israeli forces continued to advance deep into Lebanese territory. Most U.S. citizens have now left southern Lebanon. The few who survive remain on the ground to work, to protect their businesses, or simply because they are attached to their land. Moghuni’s mother-in-law is still there. For example, a nearby bombing damaged the walls and broke the windows, but the house is still standing.
So is American businessman Anwar Ghaida, whose properties have been hit twice, once in 2024 and again earlier this year.
It made headlines for the first time. The strike killed three journalists who were sleeping in one of the bungalows Mr Ghaida rented along with a wedding hall in Hasbaya village. Ghaida believes the attack was intentional. The journalists were reporting on Al-Manar, a Hezbollah-owned news channel, and Al-Mayadeen, a pro-Iranian news network. They were among 18 journalists from various news organizations who were there to cover the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that escalated from September to November 2024.
Ghaida thinks the Israelis may have made a mistake the second time. “They attacked the wedding venue, mainly the kitchen area, but no one was there at the time,” he said of the late-night attack. Nevertheless, the destruction was consequential. “My business has collapsed financially. I was able to host a wedding for 500 people, and now all my kitchen equipment and furniture are gone.”
By the time of the second attack on March 25 this year, his business was already declining. As the conflict escalated, “there was no one to get married” and the guesthouse became unpopular with journalists. “I think when you search online and find out it’s been blown up, you think twice before booking,” he says.
Two of his children live in the United States, but he has no desire to join them. “I have a younger brother here with his children, my mother, my sister…I have no intention of leaving them,” the 60-year-old told CNN by phone from his home in Hasbaya. Also, I don’t think I can start over at this age.
At night, despite the ceasefire, Ghaida could hear Israeli drones overhead. “Last night was really bad,” he said. “Cannon fire and loud explosions were heard in various towns.”
A common saying among Lebanese Americans is that the situation in southern Lebanon has never been this bad. Some survived the 2006 conflict. Some remember the last time Israel occupied southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000. Their family home survived it all.
This time, however, Israeli tactics were much more aggressive in the south, with soldiers destroying entire villages as they occupied territory.
A CNN analysis of satellite images this spring found that Israeli forces had destroyed civilian buildings, including mosques, pharmacies, cafes, and auto repair shops. Videos taken by residents showed controlled demolition taking place, and satellite images showed Israeli bulldozers and excavators destroying homes.
The destruction is taking place behind the so-called “yellow line” drawn by Israel. The line marks a six-mile-wide swath of Lebanese territory currently occupied by Israeli forces, roughly the same amount of land occupied by Israel until 2000. Residents of dozens of villages have been forcibly evacuated.
Israel’s defense minister justified the destruction as a strategic decision to eliminate the Hezbollah threat. Last week, UN human rights chief Volker Türk called on Israel to end its occupation and stop demolishing homes.
In the United States, the Dearborn, Michigan-based Arab American Civil Rights League (ACRL) is preparing to file a civil lawsuit against the United States on behalf of Americans who lost their homes and property in the conflict. “The U.S. government has a duty to protect American citizens and American property abroad,” said Nasser Beydoun, ACRL Chairman and lead plaintiff. “Many homes[in southern Lebanon]owned by Americans are being destroyed with our tax money, so someone has to take responsibility.”
The lawsuit seeks financial compensation and asks Congress to strip U.S. aid from Israeli military units involved in the destruction.
Behind the lawsuit are about 180 families whose ties to Lebanon span generations, such as Mohammad Fayyad Reda, 70, who returned to his ancestral land after a long career at a New York bank on Wall Street.
“I had a decent life in America, but I became homesick. So I retired, took my pension home and built a nice house out of local brick and stone,” Reda said.
He lives in the village of Yaloun, a mixed Christian and Muslim village located on the border with Israel and currently occupied by the Israeli army. Lebanese nationals are not allowed to enter the country. Like many refugees, Leda has no one to bring her news from home, so she monitors her property through satellite imagery.
“After the first or second ceasefire, they decided to demolish the house,” he said. “Then they started their systematic destruction. They destroyed the whole town. There were probably a couple of houses left that they were using as bases, but they destroyed all the houses. It looked like they were going to stay there.”
Leda and her children later moved to Winter Springs, Florida. “The cemetery, my mother’s bones… it’s terrible, it’s terrible,” Reda said by phone.
“This time it’s very different,” admitted Jihad Samhat, a U.S. military veteran who was evacuated from Ainata, a village on the other side of the yellow line. “We have been occupied several times in South Lebanon,” he said, “and the Lebanese in my town maintained a presence there throughout the (previous) occupations.”
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Samhat served in the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division before moving to Lebanon, where he spent more than 15 years clearing landmines and clearing unexploded ordnance for the United Nations. He then opened Radio Beirut, a popular music venue, which ran for nine years until it closed in the wake of the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
When the fighting began, he immigrated to the United States with his wife, newborn child, mother-in-law, and dog.
They watched from afar as the destruction wreaked havoc on their village. “One day I see my house and it’s still standing. It’s still there,” he explained. “But a week later, when we take another satellite photo of the village, the house is no longer there. It’s dust.”
