Yaroun municipality chairman Hafez Ghacham told the newspaper that residents could do nothing but watch the fire consume generations-old olive trees as Israeli troops prevented access to the affected areas. "Houses can be rebuilt, but the old olive trees will take decades to return to how they were before." Ghacham described the destruction as an assault on Yaroun's history, identity, and means of livelihood, noting that the olive groves had been cultivated by generations of local families. Ghacham also stressed that the destruction affected the entire community regardless of religion. "The flames made no distinction between the olive groves of Christians and those of Muslims," he said, adding that the devastation concerned "the whole of the South: its land, its people, its culture, its dignity and its history."