“In terms of funding for reconstruction, there is nothing planned yet,” Nasser Yassin, the environment minister and head of the government’s crisis team, told the BBC on Wednesday.
“We have good signs, some promises from friends of Lebanon,” he said. “But we assume that this time we will need billions of dollars. The level of destruction is probably 6-10 times the level of 2006.”
Israel said it was acting solely against Hezbollah in its strikes on Nabataea, not against the Lebanese population. Yassin accused the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of “urbicide” for the widespread destruction of the city.
During a visit to Nabatia on Wednesday afternoon, Imran Riza, the UN’s deputy special coordinator for Lebanon, told the BBC that the scale of what needed to be done was “enormous”.
“The last two and a half months in particular have been very devastating,” he said. “It’s a very long way back.”
