South Lebanon slowly rebuilds as Israel repeatedly violates the ceasefire
As the sun sets on southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh, Jamal Sabbagh and his brother try to salvage any belongings they can find from their bombed-out home.
Having rushed back to his hometown the moment the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel was announced in November, Sabbagh still recalls the shock he felt the moment he saw his house.
“When I got there, the door was opened, and the sight in person was very different from what the pictures show,” he told Middle East Eye.
“I stood in silence, looking, thinking, ‘wow, my home...’ It was very emotional.”
With the truce between the two warring sides seeming to hold, despite Israel being accused of hundreds of violations, Sabbagh is one of many Lebanese who now look forward to rebuilding their homes.
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“You feel some pain, but you tell yourself now is the time to rebuild,” he said.
Under the ceasefire agreement, the Israeli army initially had 60 days to withdraw from Lebanese territory while Hezbollah would retreat north of Lebanon’s Litani River, to be replaced by the Lebanese army.
The US- and French-mediated deal's implementation deadline was pushed from 26 January to 18 February, as Israel says it needs more time to withdraw and claims to still be finding Hezbollah presence near its border.
Many Lebanese remain wary of rebuilding their homes and businesses due to Israel’s repeated violations.
Nabatieh, which is located above the Litani river, was hit by air strikes last week, leaving dozens of people wounded.
‘We fixed what we could’
A drive in Nabatieh, the first major Lebanese city to be subjected to heavy bombing during Israel's two-month assault, shows almost every other building razed to the ground.
Residents and municipality workers, accompanied by the never-ending sound of Israeli drones in the sky, are still removing the piles of rubble. A lot needs to be done before even thinking to rebuild.
The municipality office was destroyed in a strike that killed the mayor and other workers who were gathering food supplies.
'At the end of the day, this memory of Nabatieh was unfortunately erased...I hope they bring it back to what it was, or even better'
- Safwan Mroue, optician
The famed central market square is also no more, replaced by tents as merchants try to sell what they can while waiting to rebuild.
Other shops have either temporarily opened in other locations or were lucky to have only suffered limited damage.
“At the end of the day, this memory of Nabatieh was unfortunately erased,” said Safwan Mroue, an optician. “I hope they bring it back to what it was, or even better," he added.
“The damage was huge, [the strikes] hit Nabatieh’s centre, which is the city’s lifeline.”
Mroue’s shop was damaged by the repeated attacks, with its front window completely broken, but he considers himself spared when compared to others.
“We were expecting to have damage, we dealt with it positively and immediately fixed what we could,” he said.
The shops around him are either closed or destroyed. Residents are slowly returning to their homes and are attempting to restart the city’s economic activity.
“It may be too expensive for some stores to rebuild,” Mroue said. “Some of them rented out other places to be able to get back on their feet.”
Hezbollah, which holds strong sway in southern Lebanon, gave monetary compensation to people whose homes were destroyed or damaged.
Lebanon’s newly appointed president and prime minister designate also both promised to support the reconstruction of the south, east and Beirut's southern suburbs.
Yet, these initiatives remain unable to meet the needs of those most affected by the war.
'The southerner wants to stay in his land. His presence on the land is [proof] of a will to live and steadfastness'
- Jamal Sabbagh, Nabatieh
Before the ceasefire, the World Bank estimated the conflict had caused economic losses of $8.5bn, $2.9bn of which is the damage to Lebanese homes.
This would be over three times higher than the cost of the last war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006.
Amin Salam, Lebanon’s outgoing economy minister, gave an astronomically higher figure, saying the country might need between $20bn and $30bn to rebuild.
Israel has completely destroyed several towns and villages along the border, either through strikes or detonating their buildings.
Returning residents have found them flattened, with even trees chopped down and the agricultural land, the main source of income for many southerners, torched.
Over 4,000 people were killed in Israel's attacks on Lebanon since October 2023, most of them between September and November, when Israel turned border clashes into an all-out war.
Hezbollah said it started clashing with Israel in 2023 as a solidarity front with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
‘There is still a lot of fear’
Despite efforts from Hezbollah and the Lebanese government, some displaced people are receiving little to no aid.
Sanaa Badran, a woman from the southern town of Sharqiye living in Beirut’s southern suburbs, lost both her family home in the south and her home in the capital to the war.
Displaced several times, sometimes she had to sleep in her car while trying to find a shelter anywhere in Beirut or the north.
“I had a severe headache and lost consciousness,” she told MEE. “People around us worried and my husband told them I had fainted because I had not slept for a few days.”
Badran and her family eventually settled in a small apartment in central Beirut’s Mar Elias.
Now that the war ended, Badran’s landlord in Dahiyeh, as the southern suburbs are colloquially known, told her that he no longer wishes to rent her the damaged apartment, leaving her ineligible for Hezbollah’s aid.
She now only visits the area she called home for 24 years, while monitoring the cautious reconstruction efforts taking place.
“People started removing the rubble,” she said. But anxiety that Israeli strikes will resume persists.
“Everyone is like this. Even clothes shop owners are fixing small things because there is still a lot of fear in Dahiyeh,” she added.
The feeling is echoed by Mroue in Nabatieh, who says they are “dealing with an enemy you cannot predict”.
To Sabbagh, whose home was hit by Israel in 1996 and 2006 as well, these cycles of war and reconstruction describe the struggles of Lebanon’s southerners.
“They tell us how much our parents and grandparents suffered, which is why we truly appreciate what we have at the moment,” he said.
“The southerner wants to stay in his land. His presence on the land is [proof] of a will to live and steadfastness.”
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