Chef Aline Kamakian Warns Israeli Attacks Have Destroyed 65% of Lebanon’s Farmland
May 17, 2026
Renowned Lebanese chef and activist, Aline Kamakian has issued a devastating warning to the world, sounding the alarm on a catastrophic environmental war. The intense deployment of white phosphorus and heavy metals has already decimated or contaminated an estimated 65% of Lebanon’s agricultural land across the South and the fertile Bekaa Valley.
“‘50,000 Olive trees’ have been ‘deliberately destroyed’.”
Kamakian highlighted that the relentless use of chemical agents like white phosphorus has scorched thousands of hectares of ancient olive groves, citrus orchards, and vital crop fields.
Beyond the immediate fires, heavy metals from munitions are seeping deep into the topsoil and the water table. This toxic contamination ruins current harvests and poisons the ground, making future farming a deadly hazard.For Kamakian and the people of Lebanon, the land is everything. Destroying centuries-old olive trees is a deliberate attempt to erase Lebanese heritage and force rural communities into permanent displacement.
You can rebuild buildings, but you cannot easily heal a poisoned earth.
PROTECT LEBANON’S SOIL. 🇱🇧
Source: @cgtnamerica
#AlineKamakian #Lebanon #BekaaValley #WhitePhosphorus #fyp
English Script:
Aline Kamakian: If today the war stops, we will suffer from it for a long time. You know, there are around 50,000 olive trees that were deliberately destroyed. Many of these are the trees of over hundreds of years. There’s destruction of water infrastructure also, that breaks the ecological cycle, that is a basic of Lebanon’s natural richness. The local food production for the whole country is heavily affected. Almost one third of agricultural land in the south and the Bekaa has been contaminated with heavy metals, explosive and white phosphorus, as you said. The south of Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley makes up 65% of Lebanese Lebanon’s agricultural land. Much of it has become inaccessible. The damage will last for generations to come.
