By Emilie Madi and Maya Gebeily
TYRE, Lebanon (Reuters) -Nearly a year after a truce was meant to bring calm to Lebanon's border with Israel, tens of thousands of people have not yet returned to ruined towns in the south, kept away by deadly Israeli strikes and slim prospects of rebuilding.
Among them, 50-year-old farmer Zeinab Mehdi, who fled her home in the border town of Naqoura last year when the war between Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah intensified, joining more than a million
people fleeing the south's hilly villages.
Mehdi, like many of those who left, placed her hopes in a U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreed on November 26, 2024 that ordered hostilities to stop "to enable civilians on both sides of (the border) to return safely to their lands and homes".
TRUCE DID NOT END ISRAELI STRIKES
But while rockets are no longer launched from Lebanon, Israel has kept up strikes and troops occupying hilltops in Lebanon still flatten homes, according to residents, Lebanese officials and rights organisations.
Israel says its post-truce strikes target Hezbollah's efforts to re-establish military posts or train new fighters, accusing the group last week of hiding "terrorist activity under civilian disguise in Lebanon". Israel said in February that it needed to keep forces in Lebanon "to defend Israeli citizens" before territory is fully handed over to Lebanese troops.
Hezbollah denies that it is seeking to reconstitute its military force in south Lebanon and says Israel is striking the area to deliberately keep civilians from ever returning home.
"Whatever house was still standing or land was still in good shape, they razed," said Mehdi, who now works on a farming project funded by the U.N. Women's agency in the coastal city of Tyre. "They pulled water pumps out from the ground and destroyed them. All the irrigation I had in the ground is broken. I have nothing."
IMAGES SHOW POST-TRUCE DESTRUCTION
Mona Yacoubian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, described the pace of strikes as Lebanon's "new normal". Observers have worried that it offers a preview of how this month's fragile ceasefire in Gaza could play out: steady strikes without full-blown war.
On October 11, Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon hit construction yards approximately 40 km (25 miles) from the border, destroying more than 300 vehicles including bulldozers and excavators.
The Israeli military said it had struck "engineering machinery used to re-establish terrorist infrastructure". Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun said it hit civilian facilities.
Public Works Studio, a Lebanese research organisation, said there had been dozens of deadly attacks on people attempting to return home and using excavators to clear the rubble of their homes or filling water tanks on their rooftops.
Reuters reviewed satellite imagery of Naqoura provided by Planet Labs showing the town on January 19, approximately two months after the ceasefire came into force, and on September 14.
Reuters counted at least two dozen structures in Naqoura in the January image that appeared to have been destroyed by September, when the image showed grayish-white marks where the structures once stood. Given the buildings were intact in January, this indicated the buildings were destroyed in strikes, rather than in rebuilding efforts.
Asked about the images showing destruction in Naqoura and in another village, Houla, the Israeli military said it conducted precise operations against Hezbollah.
"The two mentioned villages contained numerous terrorist infrastructures belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization — located inside civilian buildings, underground, and within dense agricultural terrain," the military said in a statement to Reuters.
'STILL LIVING IN A WAR'
More than 64,000 people remain displaced in Lebanon, including nearly 1,000 who fled areas this month where Israel carried out strikes, the International Organization for Migration says.
Some still live in schools in Tyre.
Mounifa Aidibeh, 47, transformed her catering business into a community kitchen when Israel sharply escalated its strikes on September 23, 2024, aiming to break Hezbollah and beginning what Lebanese call the "66-day war".
Aidibeh's Mhanna community kitchen, also supported by the U.N. Women's agency, uses the harvest from Mehdi's farming to make 1,350 meals daily for the displaced in the schools.
"We thought when the 66-day war is done, we'd of course stop. We didn't expect people wouldn't go back to their homes," Aidibeh said as cooks, also displaced, tended to vats of simmering onions.
Persistent displacement is just one sign hostilities never concluded. Aidibeh pointed to a recent strike in the town of Bint Jbeil that killed children, Israel's warnings to stay away from southern villages and the daily buzz of Israeli drones overhead.
"The war never ended for it to come back – we're still living in a war," she said. "The war will end when Israel leaves Lebanon. When it totally leaves Lebanon. When there's no drone in the sky, when (Israel) doesn't hit a house every day."
Israel said in August that it would be willing to reduce its troop presence in Lebanon if the Lebanese army takes steps to disarm Hezbollah.
STILL NO MAJOR RECONSTRUCTION
The World Bank estimates Lebanon needs $11 billion to rebuild homes and infrastructure destroyed in the war. But major reconstruction efforts have yet to begin, with some countries conditioning recovery funds on progress to disarm Hezbollah.
Bidaya Sleiman, 41, was elected to Houla's municipal council this year but cannot live in the border town since an Israeli strike destroyed her home last year.
She visits weekly to support the township's modest efforts to revive public services.
"Through meeting up with people and listening to their complaints, I say the war is still ongoing and the pain of war is continuing," she told Reuters.
Israeli strikes hit Houla this month, and satellite imagery from Planet Labs dated September 24 showed widespread new damage in the town compared to a February image. With winter approaching, Sleiman said needs for shelter will grow - but first, residents want attacks to stop.
"The first thing people want is security. Because whatever we can offer these people, or whatever the state or authorities offer in compensation – if there's no security then there's something missing," she said.
(Reporting by Emilie Madi and Maya Gebeily in TyreAdditional reporting by Aziz Taher in Houla and Catherine Cartier in BeirutWriting by Maya GebeilyEditing by Frances Kerry)
