Israeli strikes on construction equipment and water infrastructure in South Lebanon have blocked recovery efforts, keeping displaced families away from their homes.

Residents of Southern Lebanon are figuring out how to rebuild when the tools needed for that are being targeted. Photograph: Getty Images

They had bulldozers and excavators, the machines needed to clear the rubble, but they were afraid to use them. Instead, locals began clearing the debris by hand after Israeli strikes hit southern Lebanon throughout 2025. These weren’t just people’s homes; they were also businesses that had construction equipment—the kind that could have made recovering far less arduous—but the machines’ owners feared that bringing them out would invite another attack.

“They felt that just the presence of this heavy machinery that was typically used in reconstruction was a threat,” said Ramzi Kaiss, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) researcher in Lebanon.

Reconstruction depends on more than replacing buildings that have been lost.…