AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Hezbollah is deeply rooted in Lebanon and has enjoyed strong support there. But after a devastating war with Israel this year that ended with a sweeping ceasefire agreement, resentment of the Iranian-backed fighting group is rising, even in the heart of Hezbollah country, as NPR's Emily Feng reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF GLASS CRUNCHING)
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Broken glass covers the ground in front of piles of twisted rebar and collapsed concrete. On each pile is planted a yellow Hezbollah flag. That's all that remains of an entire street here in southern Lebanon destroyed by Israeli air- and drone strikes this fall.
How much work do you think - how long will it take to fix the building?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Arabic).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: About three, four years.
FENG: Years?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Yeah.
FENG: Engineers are swarming this town called Nabatieh. It's a stronghold for Hezbollah, and they're assessing the damage so Hezbollah can provide them subsidies for the cost of rebuilding. Programs like this made Hezbollah popular. But after this war, engineer Sobhei Tarhini says...
SOBHEI TARHINI: No money here now. No money.
FENG: Normally, Hezbollah's backer, Iran, pays for such reconstruction. But this time around, it's only pledged a fraction of what's needed so far.
HASSAN HALAWANI: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: "We don't know our next steps," an engineer named Hassan Halawani says to me. And as we talk, a furious man pushes his way to me...
MOUSTAPHA SAAD: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: ...Waving a sheaf of papers.
SAAD: My name is Moustapha Saad, the hairdresser for ladies.
FENG: His salon was destroyed by Israeli strikes, he says, but he's been struggling to get enough documentation for Hezbollah.
SAAD: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: "Hezbollah always tells you we are victorious, but we ate excrement," Saad shouts, using an expletive. "Who can compensate us? My shop is gone, and we are victorious against Israel? We lost."
SAAD: (Speaking Arabic).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: "What business did I have in this war?" Saad continues, ignoring efforts to shush him. "They - Hezbollah - dragged us into it," he declares. This rare publicly expressed anger at Hezbollah is notable. Speaking out critically about the fighting group is socially taboo in strongholds like Nabatieh, but resentment is changing that. Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the think tank Middle East Institute, wonders whether Hezbollah and its backer Iran even have the funds to rebuild Lebanon and whether that money...
RANDA SLIM: Whether that will go far enough in assuaging some of the discontent that exists in the community.
FENG: Specifically discontent over the decision by Hezbollah to involve Lebanon in a war with Israel over Gaza, only to result in a broad ceasefire after Hezbollah's top leaders were killed and its military arsenal diminished. Slim predicts Hezbollah's preferred candidate for president likely will lose Lebanon's presidential election in just a few weeks.
SLIM: They have to work within the political system in Lebanon. They have as much as possible to make concessions.
FENG: Lina Khatib, a Middle East expert at the London-based think tank Chatham House, points out Hezbollah's military capacity has been nearly decimated by Israel. And the fall of the regime in Syria, which used to support Hezbollah with arms, means that...
LINA KHATIB: It's going to be basically impossible for Hezbollah to be able to recover its military capacity. Hezbollah is currently quite suffocated in Lebanon. The Syrian border is not accessible anymore, and then it has Israel to one side and the sea to another.
FENG: But, Khatib says, don't count out Hezbollah just yet. Even at a shadow of its former self, it's still armed and powerful in Lebanon, and it's working hard to assure its supporters in towns like Nabatieh that it has their backs.
(SOUNDBITE OF GLASS CLINKING)
FENG: In Nabatieh, employees of a cosmetic store are vainly trying to piece together shattered display cases. The contents of a shelled women's clothing store nearby have been blasted onto the street.
Underwear and mannequins and bras in the rubble.
Someone has scrawled defiant red graffiti on these concrete ruins. Producer Moustapha Itani translates it for me.
MOUSTAPHA ITANI, BYLINE: (Speaking Arabic). You will not take over our determination. We are grasping upon our resistance.
FENG: But standing nearby, Nabatieh resident Mohammad Bitar is skeptical. He thinks resistance is an empty concept.
MOHAMMAD BITAR: Fresh juice.
FENG: He opened his juice store with money he saved working abroad for more than a decade. That's now been destroyed. Bitar tried to resist, he says, to support the people of Gaza, which Israel has been bombarding relentlessly since Hamas attacked Israel last October 7.
BITAR: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: But in resisting, Bitar says, he and all Arab people have hit a brick wall.
BITAR: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: "Hezbollah - all Arabs, in fact - are liars," he says. "The group's former allies in Syria and Iran are cowards, and they are gone." And with that, he says, he feels abandoned, too. Emily Feng, NPR News, Nabatieh, Lebanon.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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