Hizbullah officials grant a Lebanese citizen a sum of money.

BEIRUT — Fulfilling pledge to help victims of the savaged Israeli offensive in Lebanon, Hizbullah has stumped up cash for people who lost their homes in the five-week blitz.

"People already had faith in Hizbullah, this will strengthen their faith," Ayman Jaber, 27, told Reuters as he carried a wad of $12,000 in banknotes Hizbullah had given him.

Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed on August 15 that his group will rebuild 15,000 homes demolished by the Israeli military juggernaut and house hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the Israeli offensive.

The rebuilding process is expected to cost at least $150 million.

The United States and Israel fear that Hizbullah initiative will entrench the popularity of the resistance group.

A senior US official told Reuters on Friday, August 18, that the Bush administration was trying to step up aid to Lebanon in a bid to counter Hizbullah rebuilding initiative.

The Israeli bombardment has left Lebanon's hard-won infrastructure in tatters and has displaced nearly one million civilians.

Award-winning American investigative reporter Seymour Hersh revealed that Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hizbullah and shared it with the Bush administration officials well before the resistance group took prisoner two Israeli soldiers.

Returnees

The United Nations said Friday, August 18, that about 400,000 Lebanese displaced by the Israeli onslaught have returned back since a UN-brokered truce came into effect.

"About 200,000 people displaced have returned to south Lebanon, and 200,000 have returned to the southern suburbs of Beirut," said Christiane Berthiaume, a spokeswoman for the UN's World Food Program, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Another 107,000 refugees who fled to neighboring Syria have crossed back into Lebanon through official crossing points, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees added. More are thought to have crossed elsewhere.

An estimated 180,000 people fled across the border to Syria during the month-long Israeli offensive against Lebanon.

"There has been a phenomenal return of the displaced Lebanese to their homes," UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis said.

"The public shelters are now virtually empty," she added.

Finnish aid minister Paula Lehtomaeki said on Friday, August 18, that between 15,000 and 30,000 homes were destroyed in the Israeli war in Lebanon.

Lebanese authorities have estimated the cost of the Israeli war in Lebanon at $3.6 billion worth of physical damages.

Al-Fadl Shalaq, head of the Council for Development and Reconstruction, said that the devastation from the Israeli war exceeded that caused by Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.

"I have witnessed all the wars in Lebanon but I have never seen a war this fierce and I do not see a response to clearing the rubble of war to match it," he told Reuters in an interview.

Concerns

As hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese return back to their destroyed villages, aid groups complain that the Israeli destruction of the Lebanese infrastructure was hindering aid efforts in the area.

Clean water supplies were also a rising concern as water mains and sewage systems were destroyed by the Israeli forces.

"One of the priorities is water," said Annick Bouvier of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The United Nations has called on Israel to lift up its naval and air blockade on Lebanon to allow urgent assistance to reach to hundreds of thousands of Lebanese returnees.

"The enormous damage to most road and bridge infrastructure leading to the south requires an immediate lift of the continuing sea and air blockade on Lebanon," said Margareta Wahlstrom, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.

Two ships carrying a total of 87,000 tonnes of urgently needed fuel supplies had docked in Lebanese ports, while another 28,000 tonne tanker was expected over the weekend.

The fuel is needed to power electricity plants, generators and water pumps.

Up to 1,200 Lebanese civilians, a third of whom were children, have been killed when Israel launched a wide-scale blitz in Lebanon on July 12.