bint-jbeil

Standing in his grimy and smoke-stained welding shop, Ahmed Jumaa is eager to help rebuild Bint Jbeil, the south Lebanon town devastated by heavy fighting during Israel’s 34-day war on Hezbollah. Already he has made a start, and Jumaa says it is the very Shi’ite group that sparked the war by capturing two Israeli soldiers that is now helping get him back into business.

Hope and despair coexist in the rubble of Bint Jbeil, the southern Lebanese town that saw some of the fiercest fighting of the war between Israel and the Hezbollah Shiite militia. ”Of course it will rebuild, sooner or later,” says Ali Hassan Bazzi (45) who stopped by the damaged shop of his friend Mohammed Bazzi (32).