(3 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Marjayoun, Lebanon – 3 January 2025
1. Various of arrival of Lebanese caretaker Minister of Social Affairs Hector Hajjar to Qlayaa village
2. Various of Hajjar shaking hands and speaking
3. Tracking shot of destroyed building
4. Various of damaged Mosque
5. Various of Hajjar touring Debbine village
6. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Hector Hajjar, Lebanese Caretaker Minister of Social Affairs:
“Today, we came to take a tour to assess the situation of the people and observe the damages. There is no doubt that the Marjayoun district has suffered significant damage. We didn’t enter Al-Khiyam; we visited Debbine and Blat. Certainly, we are standing in an area that was subjected to Zionist shelling. People want to return, but for them to return, they need reconstruction and support. They are trying, but we need to come up with a plan that enables us to achieve reconstruction and provide support."
7. Various of destroyed building
8. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Moussa Ibrahim, Debbine resident:
“I was displaced from here. When the war broke out, I fled from this area. Nothing had happened in this region at first, but during the last two months of our displacement the shelling began in this area. I left for Aley, and when the war ended, I returned. We came back and found all the destruction and devastation. That’s all I can say."
9. Various of destroyed House
10. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Moussa Ibrahim, Debbine resident:
“They must provide something to allow us to live in our homes and rebuild them first so that people can return. We say, God willing, any aid that comes will be for the benefit of the whole country."
11. Various of damaged buildings
12. Various of Head of U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Kristen Knutson taking notes during visit to Qlayaa village
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Kristen Knutson, Head of U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:
“Here is a group of U.N. agencies, in accompaniment of the Minister of Social Affairs with whom we work as part of the government-led response in Lebanon, to support people who have been affected by the conflict here in the south of Lebanon and throughout the country. So, we’re here today, really, to talk to communities that have been affected, people who have started to return home, maybe have not been able to actually return all the way home because their houses have been destroyed. Infrastructure has been destroyed. To understand what they need in terms of support to ensure that they can, in fact, start to recover."
14. Various of UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) vehicles patrolling Lebanon-Israeli border area
STORYLINE:
Lebanon’s caretaker Minister of Social Affairs visited villages in the Marjayoun province of southern Lebanon on Friday to assess war-torn areas and survey damage.
Hector Hajjar was accompanied by U.N. peacekeepers and the head of the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Kristen Knutson.
In the affected areas there were scenes of heavy destruction, with residential buildings reduced to rubble.
The destruction follows a 14-month war between the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israel, which devastated many border villages in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah has said it has completed 80% of its damage surveys in southern Lebanon and begun compensating those whose homes were completely destroyed.
However, reconstruction plans remain ambiguous. The World Bank estimates Lebanon’s financial losses from the war exceed $8 billion.
AP Video by Fadi Tawil
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