Safaa Shmaisani, a native of Nabatieh, did not know she would witness the loss of her home and the fruit of her labor through a video clip circulated on a “group.” At first, she thought the targeted house resembled hers, before doubt turned into certainty—a bitter truth: the targeted house was her three-story home, in addition to family-owned commercial shops.

She tells Annahar: “On March 10, in one moment, I lost everything. My three-story house, each floor 400 meters with a large terrace, and our eight commercial shops that were our livelihood… all the fruit of our labor. In one moment, everything turned into rubble. There is nothing left.”

Safaa is one of dozens who lost their homes in this war randomly, as she describes, and without reason.

She believes that “the loss isn’t just in the stone, but in the memories, in the family gatherings, in the love upon which every stone was built. I didn’t lose a house made of concrete, but an entire life lived with my husband and children. We were building our dream step by step… only to find ourselves today in the open.”

Safaa recalls a series of losses that have accompanied her since childhood, when she and her family lived through displacement, bombing, and destruction. “We always said, God willing, we will rebuild, and this will be the last war.” But the scene repeats today, with even greater loss. “In one raid, we lost our source of livelihood and the fruit of our lifetime.”

These figures today vary with the expanding scale of destruction and the continued severity of the war, as it becomes evident, according to the economic expert, that the extent of damages has become much larger, particularly in border villages and other southern villages, as well as parts of the Bekaa and the southern suburbs. In this context, discussion of recovery or reconstruction cannot take place without starting from the fundamentals, namely the repair of vital infrastructure, from electricity, water, and sewage networks to telecommunications.

However, the biggest challenge lies in funding, as the Lebanese state has traditionally financed these projects, while today—as Mardini points out—“the state does not have the necessary resources.” Hence, relying on private sector initiatives emerges as one of the proposed solutions for rebuilding infrastructure in affected areas, by allowing direct investment, away from linking funding to the state or donor agencies through loans, which may take years to materialize on the ground.

The main question remains: how can the private sector be incentivized to invest in infrastructure rebuilding projects? Mardini responds that the first step is to reassure investors about the stability of the situation, so that investments are not subject to wars or renewed strikes. In this regard, the ongoing negotiations between Lebanon and Israel may serve as an initial indicator of the possibility of reducing risks, thereby encouraging investment inflows instead of hesitation to enter a potentially loss-making sector amid ongoing conflicts.

In parallel, Mardini emphasizes the importance of reactivating the war-exhausted economic sector, not only in the affected areas but across Lebanon as a whole. He points out that the tourism sector used to provide the Lebanese economy with approximately $6 billion annually, an essential contribution to financing import costs and meeting vital needs. Therefore, the shorter the war duration and the faster a settlement is reached, the lower the losses and the greater Lebanon’s ability to mitigate their economic repercussions.