‘What will happen to us?' southern Lebanese Christians ask

Rita Elias and her family fled southern Lebanon to shelter with relatives in Beirut during the last war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2024, returning only after a truce. This time, she stayed to protect her property, her husband's trucking business and their tobacco farm.

"We didn't want to leave and come back to nothing," the 36-year-old mother of two young children said from the predominantly Christian town of Rmeish, near the border with Israel. "We don't want to lose our livelihood."

Thousands of Christians in the south are caught in the crossfire of a conflict inextricably linked to the attacks on Iran by the U.S. and Israel; after Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in support of Tehran on March 2, Israel retaliated, issuing sweeping evacuation orders as it announced its intention to wipe Shia militants from their southern bases, parts of Beirut and the Beqaa Valley.

That resolve to stay in their homes is being increasingly tested, even after Israel and Lebanon this week agreed on a conditional cessation of hostilities. It will only begin once Hezbollah stops attacks on Israel and its militants leave the south, and so far the group hasn't agreed to those terms.

More than 400 Lebanese have been killed in Israeli strikes after a previous U.S.-brokered ceasefire that began mid-April was largely ignored, lifting the death toll to at least 3,400. Ten Israeli soldiers were killed in the same period. Some 60 Lebanese towns and villages have been flattened and key infrastructure destroyed, and around 1.2 million people displaced. Israel Defense Forces are now advancing north of the Litani River, a dividing line in U.N. efforts to keep Hezbollah away from northern Israel, which has borne the brunt of its attacks. The IDF has already carved out "a security zone" south of the Litani, and control access to the area stretching 120 kilometers (75 miles) along the border and extending 10 kilometers (6 miles) into Lebanon.

Hezbollah and Israel have fought two other major wars going back to 2006. But this is the deepest push into Lebanon in a quarter century when Israel occupied roughly 10% of the southern region for 18 years. The government in Beirut says it now faces a second occupation following another war it didn't want. Prolonged hostilities risk imploding its key institutions, deepening economic decline and stirring tensions among Sunni and Shi'a Muslims and Christians, which erupted into civil conflict between 1975 and 1990.

Under the latest ceasefire, Lebanese armed forces will gradually start deploying to "pilot zones" after Israel withdraws. The deal is similar to the one in 2024, and will "be fragile and prone to collapse," said Freddy Khoueiry, Global Security Analyst for the Middle East and North Africa at U.S.-based risk analysis company RANE.

Lebanese "border communities are effectively trapped between competing authorities: Israel's military presence and strikes, Hezbollah's entrenched influence, and a Lebanese state that is trying but struggling" to reassert its control over the entire country, Khoueiry said. "This shows the state's core vulnerability: it is being asked to restore sovereignty in areas where it does not control the military balance, particularly as the Israelis are unlikely to withdraw under the current conditions, if at all."

He added that an open-ended campaign could produce tactical gains for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, such as the security zone, but no durable political or strategic outcome. Hezbollah will continue to target Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, he added.

Hezbollah, which holds 15 seats in the Lebanese parliament, is considered a terrorist group by the U.S. Israel says it is trying to dismantle the group's military infrastructure to protect around 64,000 civilians in its northern communities, which aren't fully shielded by its Iron Dome air defense system. The IDF says its push north of the river is necessary because the area's high ground gives Hezbollah views over southern Lebanon and northern Israel. In all, more than 20 Israeli soldiers and four civilians have been killed since March.

"This was not a war of choice. It was imposed on us," Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam told reporters in Beirut on May 30. "People of the south: you are not alone. Your pain is the pain of Lebanon."

Cut off

As hostilities began, and Israeli troops crossed the border, Lebanese soldiers left their southern outposts in their tanks and trucks, because they didn't want a direct confrontation with Israel. Despite Israeli demands, they had failed to disarm Hezbollah, which had been badly weakened during the 2024 war.

Christians said they felt abandoned. Lebanon has not conducted a census since 1932, but according to Pew Research Center estimates, they make up around 28% of the population of 6 million, and a minority of them live in the south. Some of those communities reported damage to churches, convents, and cemeteries. In Debel, Israeli soldiers desecrated a statue of Mary and took a sledgehammer to another of Jesus. They were later disciplined by the IDF. In Al-Qalaya a parish priest was killed by Israeli artillery fire in March and a father and his two children from the same town were killed in an Israeli strike just this week.

While Rmeish, a town of roughly 6,000 people, has suffered practically no destruction or deaths because of the conflict, it's surrounded by chaos and ruins. Residents, who Israel warned should not give refuge to Shia Muslims, describe the constant noise of gunfire and shelling, alongside profound changes to daily life.

Schools initially switched to online learning. When that became too difficult because of unreliable local internet connection, the municipality decided to reopen classrooms. Each morning, parents decide whether to send their children or keep them home. "Sometimes, my son would walk home back from school because there was a fuel shortage," Elias said. "We have to keep going with whatever is available. We don't want them to lose their future."

A local charity in early June set up a field hospital in a village near Rmeish after ambulance drivers said the fighting, as well as destroyed bridges and roads made reaching border areas was too difficult - around 50 medical workers have been killed in the south since March, according to Lebanese authorities, representing roughly half of all reported health-worker deaths in the country during the war. Rmeish is trying to do the same after the two hospitals it relied on in Bint Jbeil closed as the city was mostly razed to the ground.

With incomes lost, markets strained, and food becoming increasingly unaffordable, vegetable prices have risen by more than 20% while bread prices have increased by around 15%. The most vulnerable families need assistance. Earlier this year, the government provided support to around 50,000 of them in the south, with payments ranging between $20-$150, well below monthly living costs.

Salam announced a $360 million aid package for local communities from international lenders including the World Bank as well as grants from the European Union, Denmark, and France, on a visit to the southern town of Yarin before the war, but it is tied to specific reconstruction projects and basic services, and is expected be paid out in stages.

Aid agencies and private donors are struggling to fill the gaps, meaning the flow of water, aid and fuel for generators and other necessities is unreliable. Around 25 aid trucks arrived in Rmeish and neighboring towns in mid May, carrying food, parts to repair damaged mobile networks, along with personal items from people outside the security zone for their relatives, residents said. They added that an earlier convoy was turned back by Israeli authorities because it didn't have permission to enter.

"Your blood would dry before anyone could reach you to help," Elias said. "We're suffering from this."

Israel seeks a peace agreement with guarantees including the disarmament of Hezbollah - a process so sensitive that the militant group as well as figures such as veteran Druze politician Walid Joumblatt have said it could provoke another civil war. For its part, Lebanon wants Israel to withdraw and sign a security arrangement, fearing Hezbollah's reaction to a more formal accord.

The Israeli government hasn't made any formal statements on the future of those living in towns like Rmeish. During the occupation that ended in 2000, people in south Lebanon traded Israeli goods and Israel provided electricity and other basic services.

Sarit Zehavi, a reserve IDF officer and founder and president of the Alma Research and Education Center, a thinktank focused on Israel's northern border, said in a briefing on May 31 that residents of Rmeish, Ain Ebel and Debel need protection and assistance as they "are truly experiencing a very complex situation."

She added, "Israel will have to figure out how to help them for the long term."

Fearful of Hezbollah

Najib al-Amel, known as Abuna Najib or Father Najib, continues to hold mass every day in the 18th century church in the center of Rmeish. He said that the community has always been left to fend for itself.

Its population grew in waves over the decades as Christians from neighboring southern villages relocated to escape sectarian violence in mixed communities and cross border conflicts - first during Ottoman rule in the 1840s, and then again between 1969 and 1982. At that time Palestinians were using Lebanon as a base for attacks on Israel, and Israel conducted incursions across the frontier.

After the civil war, central authorities prioritized Beirut's reconstruction, neglecting health and education services in the south, along with roads, electricity and water infrastructure. Half of south Lebanon remained under Israeli occupation, and Hezbollah - which emerged from the chaos of the previous decade - grew by filling the void left by the state.

Feelings of abandonment and defenselessness led, in large part, to the creation by border residents of the South Lebanon Army. The predominantly-Christian paramilitary evolved into an Israeli-funded militia that worked to prevent cross border attacks initially by Palestinian groups, and later Hezbollah, and ran a detention center in Khiyam, described by groups such as Amnesty International as a site of serious human rights violations.

When Israel withdrew from the region in 2000, the SLA collapsed. Anyone who worked for, or with it, was labeled "a collaborator." Fearing retaliation from Hezbollah, thousands fled to Israel. Others immigrated. A few stayed to face trial and prison.

This legacy fuels the uncertainty hanging heavy over Rmeish. "After the Israeli occupation ended, we were under Hezbollah occupation and before those two, we were under Palestinian occupation," Abuna Najib said. "We have struggled with this all our lives."

The land around Rmeish for centuries yielded olives and tobacco, the lifeblood of the local economy.

During the harvest season from July to September, tobacco leaves would hang like curtains on balconies or terraces; before being sold at a subsidized rate to state-run tobacco company, the Régie Libanaise des Tabacs et Tombacs. This year, farmers couldn't access their fields during the planting season, and by the time Israel granted them permission, it was too late, they said.

Elias's family owns 45 dunum (11 acres) of tobacco fields. They planted around 22% of it, on land closest to the town. As for their trucking business, which carried goods between the south and Beirut, it has completely stopped. Today, Elias describes Rmeish as an open prison.

"We don't know what will happen to us, what we are going to do," she said. "No one is explaining what our fate will be."

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(With assistance from Fadwa Hodali, Tom Fevrier and Vivien Ngo.)

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