In the historic heart of Bint Jbeil, a 400-year-old Great Mosque once stood as a testament to the city’s enduring cultural memory. Today, it lies in ruins, alongside more than 1,500 buildings systematically destroyed by Israeli forces in an escalating military campaign in southern Lebanon.

Through the meticulous analysis of satellite imagery and open-source intelligence, a visual investigation by aljazeera.net’s fact-checking team has revealed a deliberate Israeli policy to render southern Lebanon permanently uninhabitable.

The border villages and towns of southern Lebanon are witnessing a relentless military escalation beyond conventional warfare. Israeli operations have expanded into a policy of systematically “wiping out” civilian homes, residential neighbourhoods and vital infrastructure, analysis of the map shows.

This pattern has drawn direct comparisons to the Israeli military’s brutal tactics in the Gaza Strip, which lies in ruins. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people remain forcibly displaced.

Legal experts, analysts and local officials warn that the ultimate objective is the “emptying of residential geography”, carving out a depopulated “buffer zone” at the forward edge of the border that permanently prevents displaced residents from returning and establishes a violently enforced demographic reality on the ground.

Israel says it wants to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon to prevent attacks from Hezbollah.

Mohammad Bazzi, the mayor of Bint Jbeil, told Al Jazeera that the extensive destruction reflects an organised campaign targeting civilian architecture and identity. He noted with alarm that these systematic demolitions have proceeded unabated even after the announcement of a ceasefire, suggesting a long-term strategy of territorial erasure rather than immediate tactical necessity.

Even before the current conflict erupted in March, Israel was violating the November 2024 ceasefire signed with Hezbollah almost daily, killing hundreds.

A visual map of obliteration

Bint Jbeil has emerged as the epicentre of this devastation, functioning as a concentrated model of Israel’s border strategy. By verifying and geolocating visual evidence, Al Jazeera’s digital investigation team tracked 14 distinct videos published by Israeli soldiers and journalists between 16 and 24 April.

The resulting map of the blasts exposes a highly concentrated campaign of destruction. The data reveals that 93 percent of the documented demolitions – 13 out of the 14 incidents – occurred within the Nabatieh governorate.

Half of these catastrophic explosions were focused squarely within the Bint Jbeil district, systematically flattening entire blocks in the towns of Bint Jbeil, Beit Lif, and Ainata. Another 43 percent of the blasts targeted towns administratively tied to Nabatieh, such as Khiam, Kafr Kila, and Rab El Thalathine, while a single significant demolition was recorded further west in the coastal town of Naqoura.

These figures underscore a methodical blueprint to dismantle civilian infrastructure. Aerial data and satellite imagery collected up to late April reveal a staggering reduction in Bint Jbeil’s urban mass. According to Bazzi, more than 70 percent of the city has been totally destroyed, with another 20 percent partially damaged, bringing the affected urban footprint to more than 90 percent.

Approximately 3,000 housing units have been completely levelled. The demolitions have been heavily concentrated in the city’s commercial centre and its oldest, most historic neighbourhoods, including Ain al-Saghira and the Mosque Quarter.

The destruction has stretched far beyond residential buildings to the city’s eastern and western outskirts, targeting power stations, water networks, schools and hospitals, including the Salah Ghandour Hospital.

Furthermore, Bazzi added that agricultural land has been razed and subjected to incendiary weapons and white phosphorus munitions, describing the scorched-earth tactics as a “compound crime” under international humanitarian law, which strictly prohibits the intentional destruction of civilian property and livelihoods.

Buffer zones and military objectives

Israeli military reports openly highlight the strategic importance of Bint Jbeil and the neighbouring town of Maroun al-Ras. Sitting at high altitudes, these areas overlook illegal northern Israeli settlements such as Avivim, Yir’on, Dovev, Malkia and Dishon. The Israeli military command views absolute control over these vantage points as crucial for field superiority and for directing artillery fire deeper into Lebanese territory.

The Israeli military recently announced that its 98th Division had completed the encirclement of the Bint Jbeil area as part of “Operation Northern Arrows”. The stated goal is to neutralise the threat of antitank missiles and push back Hezbollah’s Radwan Force. Currently, five military divisions are deployed deep in the area, tasked with dismantling Hezbollah’s subterranean and surface infrastructure.

Israeli media coverage frequently evokes the 2006 war’s brutal battles in Bint Jbeil, where eight Golani Brigade soldiers were killed, framing the extensive destruction of the city in 2026 as an act of military retribution.

Hezbollah had claimed victory in the 2006 war as it had prevented Israel from achieving its war goals.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently stated that his forces were continuing to strike Hezbollah mercilessly and were close to concluding the battle in Bint Jbeil. Netanyahu confirmed he had issued clear, unequivocal instructions to the military to continue expanding the security belt and to intensify their fortified presence within the newly created buffer zone.

‘No safe settlements’

In direct response to the expanding demolitions, Hezbollah released a defiant video message in Arabic and Hebrew, vowing to thwart Israel’s efforts to establish a buffer zone over the ruins of southern Lebanese communities.

“Any security belt, no matter its depth, will prevent our activation when we decide to do so,” the group warned. The broadcast served as a clear reminder of Hezbollah’s intact arsenal of rocket launchers, drones and precision-guided missiles.

The video featured a previous statement by Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem, who declared that illegal Israeli settlements “will not be safe, even if the Israelis enter any area in Lebanon”. Hezbollah fighters continue to launch precise, deadly strikes using missiles and explosive drones against Israeli troop gatherings operating within the ruins of the border villages.

For the 2,000 families forcibly displaced from Bint Jbeil, the loss of their homes, heritage and livelihoods is absolute. Yet, despite the destruction of historic mosques and neighbourhoods, the resolve of its residents remains unshaken.

Bazzi urged immediate international intervention to halt the blatant violations of international law, maintaining that Israel’s attempt at erasure would ultimately fail to uproot the people from their land.

For years, sociologists and political scientists have warned that sanctions do not work. They do not topple targeted governments; instead, they hurt their citizens. And yet, the use of sanctions has only expanded, with the US leading the charge. As a result, there is now increasing evidence that this over-reliance on such punitive measures has led to their growing ineffectiveness. The US-Israel war on Iran has made that all the more obvious.

The conflict carries the potential to push further the process of weakening the effect of US sanctions, which had already been ongoing, and reshape the preferences of both regional and global actors through different mechanisms, including de-dollarisation, alternative trading methods such as barter, and informal transfer networks like hawala.

The US relies on the dominance of its currency in global trade to leverage the sanctions it imposes. Sanctioned states are unable to carry out sanctioned trade because buyers and sellers process payments in dollars.

The spread of cryptocurrency as an alternative payment method across the world has provided a way to circumvent this problem. Over the past few years, Iran has come to heavily rely on cryptocurrency for financial transactions.

A report by blockchain data platform Chainanalysis shows that cryptocurrency flows to sanctioned entities went up remarkably in 2025, with their value rising 694 percent to a record $154bn – up from $59bn in 2024. In the final quarter of the year, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) alone accounted for 50 percent of value received – a total of $3bn.

Iran converts cryptocurrency holdings into renminbi, which is then used to buy Russian goods or conduct trade across Asian markets – embedding itself further into an alternative financial architecture that strengthens the renminbi.

The war on Iran may now expand the pool of economic actors willing to use cryptocurrency to deal with the Iranian state and entities. When Tehran took control over the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which approximately 20 percent of the world’s oil and LNG passes, it began demanding transit tolls from vessels navigating the strait.

The fees, typically starting at $1 per barrel, were payable in Bitcoin or renminbi, and reports have shown that a number of vessels and companies paid. Unlike stablecoins such as USDT, Bitcoin is fully decentralised and cannot be frozen by any issuer.

With approximately 175 million barrels currently loaded onto tankers in the Gulf, even partial toll collection could make considerable revenue if the strait reopens.

The use of renminbi is also significant. China is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, and it pays in its own currency. But other countries have also started using the renminbi. In 2024, 30 percent of China’s external merchandise trade was paid for in its currency.

The toll mechanism is particularly significant in encouraging more companies to use the renminbi precisely because it has made the costs of dollar dependence impossible to ignore. Countries that have long endured the inconvenience of dollar-denominated trade are now facing its geopolitical risk in real time – watching the US weaponise the dollar access against allies and adversaries alike through secondary sanctions, waivers granted and suspended at will, and a blockade that disrupts global energy markets regardless of a country’s relationship with the US.

However, de-dollarisation via cryptocurrency and renminbi represents only one layer of the alternative financial architecture that the war is accelerating. Beneath the on-chain economy lies a more informal but equally significant set of mechanisms – hawala networks and barter arrangements – that the war and blockade may push further into the mainstream of regional and global trade.

Hawala is an informal transfer system that has existed for centuries. It operates through a network of brokers who enable payments in different locations without the physical movement of money. In the case of Iran, hawala works through trusted intermediaries – often shell companies established in various countries – that facilitate transactions on behalf of Iranian entities without directly linking deals to Iran, allowing for continued import and export activity.

The system produces shared benefits – commercial activity, transaction fees, employment, and demand for legal and logistics services – that give host countries a direct economic stake in its continuation. Beyond material advantage, these arrangements strengthen bilateral ties that host governments regard as strategically valuable amid mounting energy security concerns. Hawala, therefore, does not only help Iran evade sanctions – it quietly recruits regional economies as stakeholders in that evasion, embedding circumvention into the normal functioning of regional commerce.

The war is likely to enhance the appeal of already existing barter arrangements and attract a wider range of regional and global actors. In 2021, for example, Iran and Sri Lanka signed an agreement for the latter to repay its debt in the form of tea exports. A barter agreement also exists between Iran and Pakistan. India is now considering oil for rice swaps, and there is the potential for expanding exchanges of industrial goods with Russia. Each of these bypasses conventional banking channels, removing exposure to secondary sanctions and dollar-denominated settlement.

Most notably, Iran may now extend this model to the Strait of Hormuz itself, turning transit toll revenues into commodities traded across regional, Asian, and European markets and transforming a wartime chokepoint into a node within a broader barter-based alternative economy.

Nevertheless, dollar dominance is unlikely to unravel overnight. About 80 percent of global oil transactions remain dollar-settled, and the currency still makes up about 57 percent of global foreign exchange reserves – against just 2 percent for the renminbi, whose tight capital controls limit its convertibility and hinder its viability as a true reserve currency.

What the US-Israeli war is accelerating is not immediate substitution but gradual erosion – a slow-motion shift whose endpoint remains uncertain but whose direction is increasingly difficult to reverse.

Taken together, de-dollarisation, hawala networks, and barter arrangements divulge a structural paradox at the heart of the US-Israeli war strategy towards Iran. The war has generated an outcome its architects did not anticipate: Rather than dismantling Iran’s resistance infrastructure, it has internationalised it, expanding what analysts describe as an “axis of evasion”. If this trajectory is maintained, the long-term casualty may not be the Iranian state but the sanctions regime itself – and with it, the dollar’s hegemonic role as the tool of Western geopolitical imperialism.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

The attack last year on a migrant detention facility killed at least 68 detainees.

Amnesty International has called for a United States air strike on a migrant detention centre in Yemen to be investigated as a possible war crime.

In a report released on Tuesday, the rights group said the strike on April 28, 2025, hit a detention facility in Saada in northwestern Yemen, killing at least 68 detainees and injuring 47.

The detention centre had operated for years as part of a larger prison complex and had previously been visited by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations, who found no evidence the compound was being used for military purposes.

“The Trump administration’s approach to its air strikes in Yemen from March to May 2025 should have set off alarm bells in the USA and around the world,” said Nadia Dar, director of Amnesty International USA.

“Instead, the US administration has systematically weakened safeguards … while simultaneously displaying a dangerous disregard for the lives of civilians endangered by armed conflicts,” she added.

Survivors say they remain without support

Amnesty said survivors interviewed nearly one year after the strike were still suffering serious physical and psychological harm and many were unable to afford treatment.

The organisation spoke to six Ethiopian men wounded in the attack. It said five were unable to work because of their injuries while most now depended on financial support from relatives.

Four remain in Yemen, and two have returned to Ethiopia. One survivor, identified as Jirata, 30, said he lost one of his legs in the strike and had a metal rod inserted in the other.

“I have lost hope, and I have nothing left that keeps me going,” he said in testimony published by Amnesty.

“The US government caused all this, and as a result [of the air strike], I can no longer work and support myself. I want them to provide any type of reparation that will help with our life in any way possible, something that will revive my hope.”

No public findings released

After the strike, a US defence official said the military was assessing reports of civilian casualties.

Amnesty said that a year later, the US military’s Central Command had not publicly released the findings of any investigation or announced whether accountability measures would be taken.

Amnesty said the Yemen attack was among the deadliest civilian incidents linked to a US strike that it had documented in recent years.

The group also cited a US strike on a school in Minab, Iran, on March 16, which it said killed 156 people, including more than 120 children. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a separate investigation into another US strike in Minab was continuing.

Amnesty said its investigation found the US had failed to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm.

The organisation urged Washington to carry out prompt, transparent and independent investigations into strikes in Yemen and Iran and called on the US Congress to increase oversight of military operations and ensure reparations for civilians harmed.