Hezbollah vows to rebuild after devastating war with Israel

In front of the huge crater, left by a series of massive Israeli airstrikes, a crowd of thousands has gathered to pay their respects to the assassinated leader of Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrullah.
“We are at your service Nasrullah,” they chant. Some are sobbing, “he is like a father to us,” one tearful young woman tells us. Nasrullah is regarded as a terrorist in the West, but here in Hezbollah’s heartlands, the war ravaged southern suburbs of Beirut, he’s considered a hero – one that stood alongside Hamas in Gaza, and against Israel. “The Israelis are planning to kill us and occupy Lebanon, because of Hezbollah they didn’t,” says Mahdi, a 15-year-old boy whose two cousins died fighting for the group along the border with Israel.
“All our homes are gone but it is ok,” he adds defiantly.
Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel shortly after the October 7th attacks by Hamas, as Israel launched a massive bombing campaign in Gaza. For almost a year, Israel and Hezbollah’s conflict was a sideshow, the two sides trading tit-for-tat strikes that displaced tens of thousands of people on either side, but that remained largely confined to the border region.
Then, Israel upped the ante, killing much of Hezbollah’s senior leadership and launching a ground invasion. More than 4,000 people in Lebanon have been killed over the past year, a figure that includes fighters, as well as more than 1,000 women and children. Now a fragile ceasefire is in place, and Hezbollah is looking to rebuild.
 
So too are the more than one million Lebanese civilians forced to flee their homes by Israel’s devastating airstrikes. Large parts of the south of Lebanon, home to the country’s Shia Muslim population, from where Hezbollah draws its support, have been reduced to rubble.
Amongst those returning are Mohammed and Fatima, parents of 2-year-old Ivana. Her face and body badly scarred, her head still bandaged. She suffered extensive burns following an Israeli strike near their home. “I cry when I look at her, it’s like I can’t breathe,” her mother says, “coming back into this house makes me so upset, I feel I’m suffocating.”
But the family’s anger is not only directed at Israel, it’s also at Hezbollah. Across the road from their home, hidden in a garage, the remnants of a truck and a Hezbollah rocket, presumably the target of Israel’s strike.
“We are all with the resistance,” says Mohammed, referring to Hezbollah, “we all want the country to be defended, but not in this way. I didn’t know about it beforehand. It’s unacceptable.”
The family’s home is badly damaged and they’re living with friends. For now, their biggest priority is finding somewhere to stay. So far, they’ve received no help from the Lebanese government or Hezbollah.
Hezbollah is, however, much more than an armed militia, it’s a political and social movement. It has promised to compensate those who have suffered during the war, telling supporters it will pay at least one year’s rent to those displaced as well as providing them an allowance for new furniture. After the previous conflict with Israel in 2006, its own construction company rebuilt whole apartment blocks. It seems it plans to do the same again now, though the damage is far more extensive.
Public criticism of Hezbollah is rare in southern Lebanon, but elsewhere in the country, many accuse it of dragging the entire population into a futile war.
I ask Hussain Jashi, a member of parliament for Hezbollah in the southern district of Tyre, whether he feels the group should apologise to those who have suffered during the war? “We are fulfilling our duty to defend our people,” he responds, “we make sacrifices for them, and we hope that they understand. We haven’t made any mistakes to apologise for.”
Hezbollah’s presence in southern Lebanon is being rolled back. The Lebanese Army, far weaker than Hezbollah, is ramping up deployments in the region where, under the ceasefire agreement, it’s meant to replace Hezbollah’s forces. Hezbollah’s critics argue the state must impose its authority over the group.
“Israel is committing genocide in Gaza,” says journalist Diana Moukalled, founder of independent news outlet Daraj Media, “and I think it’s not possible to have peace with such a mentality.” But she adds, “We have to look at the interest of Lebanon. The destruction that we are living in now, the amount of people that we have lost, cannot be repeated.”
Back in the Tyre district, we attend a funeral for five slain Hezbollah fighters. In their chants, mourners invoke the death on the battlefield of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussain. Martyrdom has always played a key role in Shia identity, and amongst the relatives of the dead we speak to, there are no regrets.
“I feel pride and joy and my head is high,” says the mother of one fighter with a smile, “I have one more son, and I would offer him too in sacrifice for this country and the land.”