In southern Lebanon, a 'race between preserving memory and Israel's destruction'

After the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Zaoutar El-Gharbiyé, Lebanon, on July 28, 2026. DIEGO IBARRA SÁNCHEZ FOR « LE MONDE » Adeeb Farhat opened the package he had just received: two small paintings of landscapes from southern Lebanon and old magazines. The young film producer's passion for archives related to Lebanon's southern region ran deep, as evidenced by the boxes of old newspapers stacked in his Beirut office. But the intensity of demolitions carried out by Israel in the partly occupied south, he said, had sparked "a race between preserving memory and destruction." He himself had to evacuate some of his archives from Arab Salim, the town in southern Lebanon where he had been living since the outbreak of the latest war between Israel and Hezbollah on March 2, a conflict that had been partially frozen since the ceasefire on June 20. Every day, however, the Israeli army detonates homes in the occupied zone and carries out airstrikes around the area. More than 20 border villages have been razed since an initial truce in April. Today, Adeeb Farhat searches for anything connected to the history of southern Lebanon, as well as to the latest conflict, for his archive collection. Photographs, objects, books or oral testimonies he himself collects; everything interests him. The southern region has endured decades of recurring wars linked to Israel, long before the emergence in the 1980s of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shiite armed movement. The South was also under Israeli occupation from 1978 to 2000, a period from which Adeeb Farhat has kept bilingual (Hebrew and Arabic) passes that had to be shown to the Lebanese militia responsible for administering the area on behalf of Israel. You have 74.16% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.