NPR | Wenesday, April 1, 2026 
After Israel’s invasion, many in southern Lebanon worry they’ll never go home

JEZZINE, Lebanon — Joseph Elias Issa worries he might never return to his land. He’s from a long line of shepherds and farmers in the town of Kfar Houneh, in southern Lebanon. In his 56 years, he has stayed put — in these rocky olive and citrus groves of his ancestors — through nearly every war Israel has fought with its neighbors. But this time feels different, he says. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon — aimed at ousting Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants from these same rocky hills — has triggered one of the biggest and fastest displacements in Lebanon’s history, affecting more than a million people, or about a fifth of the population. Israel has ordered residents to move north of the Zahrani River, below which Israeli airstrikes have destroyed bridges, homes, highways and gas stations. That evacuation zone comprises 15% to 20% of Lebanon’s territory. Across the country, schools have been converted into shelters. People are also camping out in tents at a soccer stadium in the capital Beirut. Issa has taken refuge in a shepherd’s hut in the forest, near a waterfall. It’s on the outskirts of Jezzine, about 5 miles north of Kfar Houneh. Both are outside the evacuation zone, but their outskirts have still been hit by Israeli airstrikes. “Airstrikes, warplanes, you hear it, you see it all around you,” Issa recalls of his harrowing drive north, in a truck carrying his mules…Read more