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NABATIYEH, Lebanon — Past the shattered glass of the balcony doors of Najib Ayyad’s damaged apartment in southern Lebanon, he can see a historic local landmark — now occupied by Israeli forces.

“You see the castle?” he asks. Beaufort Castle, a crusader-era fortress, was seized in May by Israeli forces who have now gone far beyond what the Israeli government describes as a “security zone” in southern Lebanon.

“They can see us clearly from there,” he says. “Even if my apartment weren’t damaged I couldn’t stay.”

On the day we visit in June, smoke is rising from an Israeli artillery strike near Nabatiyeh, a small city that is a hub in the south of the country. The sound of Israeli drones is a constant backdrop in a city devastated by war, but which still shows tentative signs of residents trying to rebuild their lives here.

Ayyad, a parliamentary office worker, has come back only to salvage some belongings from the apartment. He used to commute to work from here to the parliament member’s office near Sidon, a short drive away. With no money to rent another apartment, he is staying with his daughter in her flat in Beirut.

It’s a struggle to even get to his apartment. Broken chunks of concrete cover the building’s entranceway while the staircase is littered in rubble and broken glass. Israeli air strikes have knocked out electricity throughout the city.

Three floors up, shafts of light from empty windows with jagged frames illuminate piles of broken furniture.

On the street outside, most homes have been destroyed or heavily damaged. One elegant multi-story villa set back behind metal gates appears intact but the back of the building has been heavily damaged.

A long history

Nabatiyeh is an administrative center for the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, whose fighters and infrastructure Israel now says it is targeting. But Hezbollah is also a political party and a provider of social services, and as in other towns and cities in the south, much of the damage and many of the casualties are civilian.

Lebanese health officials say at least 4,200 people have been killed since the war began on March 2. At least one in five of the dead are women or children, they say. Israel says 37 of its soldiers and one military contractor, along with two civilians, have been killed by Hezbollah attacks.

For hundreds of years, Nabatiyeh’s covered market was a thriving commercial center — first on a transit route between Jerusalem, Damascus and Mecca and then as an important Ottoman-era town. In 1982, invading Israeli forces occupied the city, withdrawing three years later.

Its covered market with red-tiled roofs and stone arches featured farm produce, clothing and handicrafts — much of it now in rubble from Israeli attacks.