The few who managed to come back endure harsh illegal Israeli violations such as curfews and indiscriminate killings by Israeli soldiers. Worse yet, they have no means of survival. Electricity and water supplies, as phone and internet lines, were deliberately ruined by Israel, alongside health and education facilities.

Im Hassan (mother of Hassan), as she chooses to be identified, is a civilian who recently returned to Aitaroun, an agricultural border village, to find no trace of her inherited family home. She bitterly tells me: “They (Israeli soldiers) destroyed everything, the properties and crops, and killed the cattle.” She has no clue how she could afford rebuilding the house, and even if the land can produce harvest again.

The World Bank assessed the Lebanese losses of the latest Israeli aggression of September 2024 at 8.5 billion dollars, of which 1.2 billion are the cost of the destruction of crops, livestock and the displacement of farmers, including Hussein, Im Hassan’s cousin. Hussein complains: “I have spent my life restoring my house after every Israeli attack, I am too old for that now and have no savings.” Although Hezbollah pledged to provide financial compensation, Hussein says he received one cheque, “barely covering the fees of my rented space for two months, and no one mentioned rebuilding my property.”

Southerners are impatient and disappointed. Newly designated Prime Minister Nawaf Salam met some of them while checking the Southern areas where five strategic spots remain under Israeli occupation. His promise of a swift return to their villages and the government's commitment to the reconstruction process didn’t convince them. “Enough with words, everything is still in rubble,” Hussein tells me, referring to 1.2 million cubic meters of rubbles resulting from the massive destruction.

Human Rights Watch quoted a local of Nabatiyeh that four to five years are needed to resume economic life, especially amid the high inflation and currency devaluation. Because the global focus is on mega plans for Gaza’s and Syria’s rehabilitation, and the infamous history of the Lebanese system’s widespread corruption, it is unlikely for the internally displaced Lebanese to get a slice of the pie from foreign aid. They feel abandoned. Simultaneously, the heroic local peacebuilding efforts that developed during the latest Israeli war on Lebanon have faded. Political and sectarian rifts re-emerged. Frustrated Hezbollah supporters violently protested for days in Beirut, risking to jeopardize the already fragile civil peace.

Therefore, international involvement and supervision in comprehensive and transparent reconstruction of the devastated areas seem an urgent need for social stability, trust and peacebuilding among Lebanese.