In areas of southern Lebanon it has occupied since agreeing last week to a ceasefire with Hezbollah, the Israeli army has been destroying homes it says were used as outposts by the Iran-backed militant group.

But the demolitions were happening on such a wide scale that residents, Lebanese officials and UN peacekeepers were increasingly worried that large numbers of people displaced by the latest war would have nowhere to return if the fragile truce holds.

From a hill overlooking Beit Lif - about 4km north of Lebanon’s border with Israel - Associated Press journalists could see that the village, once home to a few thousand people, had been almost entirely flattened.

“They were demolishing it gradually until they reached the main square and now, as you can see, there are no more houses,” said Hassan Sweidan, a resident of a neighbouring village.

Lebanese officials had planned to raise the issue of widespread demolitions on Thursday when they hold ceasefire talks with their Israeli counterparts in Washington - part of the first direct negotiations between the two countries in decades.