NPR

Away from Gaza, homes in south Lebanon bear the scars of Israel's other front line

A farming village in southern Lebanon sits on the edge of a parallel conflict to the war in Gaza, with Hezbollah militants fighting with Israel. Some Lebanese hold out hope for a permanent truce.
Widad Ghareeb visits a neighbor's house that was destroyed by an Israeli attack during fighting between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah forces that escalated when the latest Gaza war began. Ghareeb's home next door was also heavily damaged.

KFAR KELA, Lebanon — Since the war in Gaza began, this quiet farming village along the Israeli border has found itself on the front lines of a parallel conflict — the patios of gracious stone homes now a dangerous front-row seat to the attacks between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, occupying the south of the country for 18 years. Fighting flared again into war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militia. Since then, despite sporadic attacks, this region of southern Lebanon, with its rich soil and olive groves, has been stable enough that many villagers built sprawling homes on land they have farmed for generations.

One of them is Ibrahim Hamoud, 72, who sat on a plastic chair on a patio covered with broken glass two weeks ago, on what turned out to be the last day of a weeklong truce between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that rules the Gaza Strip. The was accompanied by a halt

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