Returning & Rebuilding in Zawtar El Sharqiyeh

Start with the Zawtar El Sharqiyeh municipality and the Council of the South — they hold the local record of who has been hit. War-damage assessments in the south are carried out by Lebanese Army engineering teams, and the Council of the South also sends engineers to inspect damaged homes.

Keep your own evidence too: dated photographs of the damage, your ownership or residence papers, and any assessment reference you are given. There is not yet a single national website where an individual files a claim, so a clear local record matters. If you cannot reach the municipality, your mukhtar and neighbours who have already returned are the next point of contact.

Money has been set aside, but as of mid-2026 there is still no open national process through which an individual homeowner applies and receives rebuilding compensation. In the 2026 state budget, Parliament moved about $90 million from the emergency reserve toward southern relief and reconstruction — roughly $67 million to the Council of the South and $24 million to the Higher Relief Commission.

The documented chain is: the Army assesses the damage, the Higher Relief Commission distributes compensation, and the Council of Ministers signs it off. In practice this has been slow, and much of it remains a commitment on paper. The honest position today is to register your damage locally and with the Council of the South, keep your evidence, and watch for a formal application window to open.

In the Nabatieh district, the answer to 'who provides this service' often has three parts: the Lebanese state (the municipality and the Council of the South); party-affiliated rehabilitation and compensation campaigns, which have surveyed damage and paid some households directly; and international actors (UN agencies such as UNDP, and NGOs). They do not always coordinate, which is why the same question can get different answers.

For war-damage to your home, the official state route is the municipality and the Council of the South. It is worth registering through that route even if another body has already recorded your damage, so your home is on the state's list when a formal process opens.

The Council of the South (Majlis al-Janoub) is the government body responsible for the south: compensation for war victims, help for the displaced, and rebuilding infrastructure. Its engineers inspect damaged homes, and it is one of the two bodies the 2026 budget money was directed to.

You can reach it on 01 821 280, or through its website, councilforsouth.gov.lb.

In June 2025 the World Bank approved a $250 million project — the first part of a larger framework — to help Lebanon recover from the war. It is run by the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR).

It is important to understand what it does and does not cover: it funds public works — clearing rubble, making unsafe buildings safe, and repairing roads, water, power, schools and clinics. It does not pay individual families to rebuild private homes, and there is no way for a homeowner to apply to it directly. It is about putting shared services back, not personal compensation.

Be very careful. Nabatieh is among the most heavily contaminated districts in the south: unexploded shells and cluster munitions remain in fields, rubble and along roads, and a UNDP assessment found most of the district's farmland assets damaged. They can still kill or maim long after the fighting stops.

If you see anything suspicious — a strange metal object, something that looks like a small canister or a shell, anything you do not recognise — do not touch it, do not move it, do not kick it, and keep children well away. Move back the way you came, and call the Civil Defense on 125 or the Lebanese Army on 1701 to report it. Never try to move or defuse it yourself. Clearing it is the job of trained teams working under the Lebanon Mine Action Center, the Army and the UN.

Tobacco is the heart of Zawtar's economy, and the Régie Libanaise des Tabacs et Tombacs runs the licensing, quotas and per-ton price support that keep growers going. But a licence does not make a field safe. Much of the village's farmland may still hold unexploded ordnance, and it must be checked and cleared by the official teams before it is worked — no crop is worth stepping onto an uncleared field.

For questions about your licence, quota or the price-support payment, the Régie is the authority. For whether a specific plot is safe, follow the Army and the mine-action teams, not your own judgement of how the ground looks.

The ceasefire has held only partly. In June 2026 the Lebanese Army urged people returning to villages near the line — Zawtar among them — to wait and to report any unexploded ordnance, while a road leading to the village was still being shelled. Return for many people is conditional and may have to be reversed.

This guide is service information; it is not a live safety or security service. For warnings about danger in a specific area, follow the official channels — the Lebanese Army, the Civil Defense, and the municipality — rather than rumour. If you are unsure whether it is safe to return to a particular place, ask the municipality and the neighbours who are already there.

Many of Zawtar's families live abroad, and residents have been following the fate of their own homes from a distance through satellite and drone footage and through neighbours who have returned. Keep in touch with the municipality, your mukhtar, and people on the ground, and keep your ownership papers and any photographs safe.

Be wary of anyone promising payments or asking for a fee to register your damage or 'speed up' compensation — the official bodies do not charge you to report it. If a page or a person asks for money up front, treat it as a scam.