Israel systematically sabotages post-war recovery in southern Lebanon: Report
Iran Press TV
Wednesday, 12 November 2025 5:45 PM
Israel has continued attacks on Lebanese soil, despite the ceasefire agreement of November 2024, deliberately orchestrating a campaign to prevent the reconstruction of southern Lebanon and perpetuate the suffering of the local population.
In a flagrant violation of Lebanon's sovereignty, the regime has specifically targeted the very symbols of recovery: bulldozers, excavators, and temporary shelters, under the baseless pretext of striking "Hezbollah infrastructure."
The strategy has effectively held tens of thousands of displaced civilians hostage, blocking their return and making the revival of the shattered border towns like Hula an act of defiance in itself.
"For us, the war has not ended," Tarek Mazraani, 61, a Hula resident and engineer who is a leading voice for reconstruction, told AFP. "We can't return to our villages, rebuild, or even check on our homes."
In cash-strapped Lebanon, authorities have yet to begin reconstruction efforts and are hoping for international support, particularly from the Persian Gulf countries.
They have blamed Israeli strikes for preventing efforts to rebuild, which the World Bank estimates could cost $11 billion.
Driven by an unwavering determination to return home, Mazraani founded the Association of the Residents of Border Villages to champion the right of return.
However, the Israeli regime, in a brazen act of intimidation, dispatched drones to broadcast threats against him by name, attempting to silence his civic efforts with false accusations of ties to the Resistance.
"They are bombing prefabricated houses, and not allowing anyone to get close to the border," said Mazraani, who has moved to Beirut for fear of Israel's threats.
"They are saying: no reconstruction before handing over the weapons," he added, referring to Israel's demand that Hezbollah disarm.
'Nothing military here'
The scale of the devastation is a testament to Israel's scorched-earth policy.
An international rights organization has estimated that "more than 10,000 structures were heavily damaged or destroyed" between October 2024, when Israel launched a ground aggression against southern Lebanon, and late January.
The report said much of the destruction occurred after the November 2024 truce took effect.
In a targeted attack on Lebanon's economic backbone, Israeli strikes annihilated over 300 pieces of vital construction equipment in the Msaileh area in October.
Ahmed Tabaja, 65, surveying his burned-out machinery, told AFP that he hoped to repair just five of his 120 vehicles destroyed in the strikes, a devastating loss amounting to five million dollars.
"Everyone knows there is nothing military here," he said.
The yards, located near the highway, are open and visible. "There is nothing to hide," he said.
In a nearby town, Hussein Kiniar, 32, said he couldn't believe his eyes as he surveyed the heavy machinery garage his father built 30 years ago.
He said Israel struck the family's yard twice: first during the war, and again in September after it was repaired. The first strike cost five million dollars, and the second added another seven million in losses, he estimated. "I watched everything burn right before my eyes," Kiniar said.
The Israeli military said that day it had targeted "a Hezbollah site" in the Ansariyah area of southern Lebanon, which stored engineering vehicles intended to rebuild Hezbollah's "capabilities and support its terrorist activity."
Kiniar denied that he or the site was linked to the Resistance. "We are a civilian business," he said.
This pattern of targeting civilian infrastructure was further highlighted in October, when Israel assassinated two engineers working for a company, further cementing its strategy of crippling Lebanon's recovery and punishing any entity it unilaterally and falsely accuses of supporting the Resistance that defends the nation.
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