BEIRUT, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- On the balcony of a rented apartment in southern Lebanon's Marj al-Zouhour, Najla Yassine scrolls through aerial images of her home and shop on her phone, zooming in and out, trying to get closer to a place she can no longer reach.
"I never imagined I would pay hundreds of U.S. dollars to see my home from space," said Yassine, a homemaker in her 40s who was displaced from the southern town of Adaisseh.
She had only wanted to know what remained of her property after the war. The answer was devastating: her home and shop had been destroyed, along with many of the surrounding houses.
As many border areas in southern Lebanon remain difficult to access, satellite imagery has become a way for displaced residents to see what has happened to their properties. Some purchase images taken at different times to compare the destruction and changes to their homes, land and businesses.
The service doesn't come cheap. According to residents, a single high-resolution image can cost between 200 and 500 U.S. dollars.
"For me, the story does not end with a single image," Yassine said. "Every new image brings a mixture of fear and hope because it is my only window into the town I cannot reach."
For Fatina Nasrallah, the image of her home in the Wadi al-Asafir area of southern Lebanon's Khiam brought back memories of what stood there before the war.
"It was the result of more than six years of hard work and saving by my husband and me," she said, pointing to the garden and trees that once surrounded the three-story house in the aerial image.
She paid 300 dollars for the image, which showed that those years of effort had been reduced to "a pile of stones."
Hasnaa Harb, a university student in the southern border town of Aitaroun, said the cost of obtaining satellite images has become a burden for her family, describing it as "part of the war bill."
"My family's home was destroyed, as were the homes of all residents of the town," Harb said.
The same technology has become important to beekeepers in Shebaa, where dozens have turned to satellite images to check on hives they can no longer safely reach.
Mayor of Shebaa Hassan Ali Zahra said about 1,000 beehives are scattered across border areas.
"These beekeepers spend hundreds of dollars to obtain new images," Zahra said, noting that initial losses among beekeepers in villages in the Arkoub area had been estimated at around 400,000 dollars.
In Wazzani, southern Lebanon, satellite images are also used to help reveal the damage to a tourism sector that once contributed significantly to the local economy.
"Everything has changed," said Nidal Issa, owner of a recreational park in the area.
More than 25 tourism projects were affected, with the cost of each ranging between 1 million and 1.5 million U.S. dollars, according to local estimates.
A joint assessment by the United Nations Development Programme and Lebanon's National Council for Scientific Research, released in June, found that 11,095 buildings had been completely destroyed as of April, with total damage estimated at 1.38 billion dollars. ■
