Assessing the Damage at Lebanon's Historical Sites
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Lebanon is full of antiquities, crusader castles, Ottoman architecture, Roman and Phoenician ruins. This fall, Lebanon was the scene of a war between Israel and Hezbollah. Now, with a ceasefire in place, archaeologists have begun assessing the damage to the historical sites. NPR's Lauren Freyer recently visited some.

Tell me where we are now. This looks like Rome. Yes, this is the leftovers of the Roman Empire. We have a huge basilica with the Roman columns. Archaeologist Mahmoud Ghazal shows me beautifully preserved Roman ruins stretching down to the Mediterranean. You can almost see the chariots racing. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the city of Tyre on Lebanon's south coast.

The roof of the adjacent ticket office is painted with a massive blue and white shield. So it can be seen by warplanes? Warplanes, yes, to be protected. Marking it as protected cultural property under a UN treaty which Israel and Lebanon have both signed. But a couple of hundred yards away...

Crews are shoveling rubble. In addition to more than 4,000 people killed this fall in Lebanon by attacks Israel says are aimed at Hezbollah, huge swaths of this country have been leveled, including the city surrounding these ruins, where Hezbollah enjoys lots of support. It was destroyed.

the third sector of the city of Chir. So this was a walled old city and these are the fortifications? A Byzantine-era wall was destroyed. Ottoman-era homes collapsed. Some museum artifacts got bubble-wrapped and whisked north by the Lebanese army. But you can't bubble-wrap whole buildings. So this lady's showing us a ceiling that's kind of fallen down here.

And like other UNESCO World Heritage sites that have also seen recent fighting, the Greco-Roman temples of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, the Neolithic, Roman and Persian ruins of Palmyra in nearby Syria, archaeologists have yet to x-ray these ancient columns for hairline fractures. Elsewhere, though, the damage to antiquities is obvious with the naked eye, an overwhelming sight.

There's stone arches and crystal chandeliers and paintings of Christian saints on the walls, some stained glass. And it's like one wall of the church is sheared off and there's twisted rebar and part of the roof sort of dangling off. Israel accuses Hezbollah of hiding weapons and fighters in places like these. It often gives evacuation warnings before it attacks.

But Lebanese officials say eight people were killed in an October airstrike on this 19th century Greek Catholic church in the village of Derd Ghaya. The Israeli military confirmed the airstrike but said it was targeting what it calls terrorists who unlawfully embed near or underneath cultural heritage sites.

In another village down the road, the white marble minaret of a 250-year-old mosque lies on its side in the street. There are some Qur'ans here.

Two elderly locals, Ali Sharafuddin and Najib Yasin, show me around the damage and urge me to Google it. This is a famous old building, they say. And nobody has come to log the damage. Not the United Nations, not the government, not anyone, they say. From afar, the World Bank estimates Lebanon's losses at $8.5 billion. $8.5 billion.

When you keep monuments standing, then you can actually keep the history alive. Joanne Farshouk-Boujali is a specialist in heritage architecture, who, since a ceasefire in late November, has been making her way around to all of the properties on Lebanon's National Register of Historic Places

to see if they're still there. I want you to see the facade, and then I want you to walk with me to the other side. I met up with her in Nabatiya, regional capital of the country's south, where a 13th century Mamluk-era market was destroyed, along with hundreds of buildings.

She walks me around one of late Lebanese Ottoman style house that was damaged in the last war with Israel in 2006, rebuilt into a cultural center and now destroyed again. Well, this is the remains. There's nothing. There's nothing. Yeah, this is totally, totally destroyed.

There's a burned car upside down. There's some children's playthings. There's a children's fun house. There had been a playground outside. Bajali has brought a photographer, Kamel Jaber, who spent his life documenting Lebanon's old houses.

For many of these properties, he's got the before pictures and is now taking the after ones. He says there were no Hezbollah fighters in these heritage homes. And moreover, he believes that with these attacks, Israel was not after Hezbollah, but instead Lebanon's antiquities, its history, and thus its claim to this land.

These are the places where the scent of our ancestors still lingers, he says. As in Gaza, Israel denies that its intention has been to lay waste to huge swaths of this country.

only that it's responding to militant attacks that come from these same areas. There's been a fortress here since 850 BC. The walls of Tibneen Castle near the border with Israel tell Lebanon's story. The foundations are Aramaic and Assyrian. The turrets were built by the crusaders. Ali Fawaz is a municipal official in charge of this castle.

He was heartened when in mid-November, when this region was under heavy Israeli bombardment, the United Nations added his beloved hometown castle and 33 other sites to its protection list, hoping to mitigate damage to them. But today, the roof of this castle is strewn with chunks of debris thrown here by the force of explosions, and one of its Crusader-era walls has crumbled. Fawaz is heartbroken. Very sad.

It's a very important place. It's our history. So you feel from inside something who cut it from you. They come here to enjoy every summer. So, you know...

As we stand on the roof of this castle, looking across snow-capped mountains to Syria in the east and Israel due south, Israeli drones buzz past us. And we hear the booms of artillery in the distance. There is a ceasefire in Lebanon, but there is also still some fighting.

Thousands of people are still unable to return home. And there are many antiquities they also have not been able to reach either. Lauren Freyer, NPR News at Tibneen Castle in southern Lebanon. That's the state of the world from NPR. Thanks for listening.

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