Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam visited heavily damaged towns near the Israeli border Saturday, pledging reconstruction. It was his first trip to the southern border area since the army said it finished disarming Hezbollah there, in January. Swathes of south Lebanon’s border areas remain in ruins and largely deserted more than a year after a US-brokered November 2024 ceasefire sought to end hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed group. Lebanon’s government has committed to disarming Hezbollah, and the army last month said that it had completed the first phase of its plan to do so, covering the area between the Litani River and the Israeli border about 30km (20 miles) further south. Visiting Tayr Harfa, around 3km from the border, and nearby Yarine, Salam said that frontier towns and villages had suffered “a true catastrophe”. He vowed authorities would begin key projects including restoring roads, communications networks and water in the two towns. Locals gathered on the rubble of buildings to greet Salam and the delegation of accompanying officials in nearby Dhayra, some waving Lebanese flags. In a meeting in Bint Jbeil, further east, with officials including lawmakers from Hezbollah and its ally the Amal movement, Salam said that authorities would “rehabilitate 32km of roads, reconnect the severed communications network, repair water infrastructure” and power lines in the district. Last year, the World Bank announced it had approved $250mn to support Lebanon’s post-war reconstruction, after estimating that it would cost around $11bn in total. Salam said funds including from the World Bank would be used for the reconstruction and rehabilitation projects. The second phase of the government’s disarmament plan for Hezbollah concerns the area between the Litani and the Awali rivers, around 40km south of Beirut. Israel, which accuses Hezbollah of rearming, has criticised the army’s progress as insufficient, while Hezbollah has rejected calls to surrender its weapons. Despite the truce, Israel has kept up regular strikes on what it usually says are Hezbollah targets and maintains troops in five south Lebanon areas. Lebanese officials have accused Israel of seeking to prevent reconstruction in the heavily damaged south with repeated strikes on bulldozers, excavators and prefabricated houses. Visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Friday that the reform of Lebanon’s banking system needed to precede international funding for reconstruction efforts. The French diplomat met Lebanon’s army chief Rodolphe Haykal Saturday, the military said.

The travel measures taken by the Israeli occupation at Rafah land crossing have laid bare grotesque violations of the freedom of movement and the fundamental rights of the civilians in the Gaza Strip, Gaza Rights Center said in a statement on Tuesday.The statement called for urgent intervention to end these tightened Israeli-imposed restrictions that marked day one of travel initiation through the crossing between the Gaza enclave and Egypt.The center stressed that these restrictions have obviously demonstrated full Israeli control over the ongoing process at this crossing, in a brazen violation of freedom of movement and fundamental rights.The Israeli occupation authorities have imposed direct control over the travelers' rosters, most of whom are patients and caregivers, approving only the travel of five patients from a total of five individuals, notwithstanding the critical medical conditions of those patients who are sorely in need of traveling abroad, the statement warned.It noted that these actions have literally disrupted the travel of the vast majority of those patients and deprived them of their rights to treatment and healthcare under international humanitarian law and human rights law.The center further emphasized that 12 returnees were subjected to grotesque violations and had been questioned for almost three hours. It held the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible legally for these abuses as the de facto occupying power controlling the crossings and individual movement.The center called on the European mission participating in the crossing arrangements to assume its legal and moral responsibility.The statement further stressed that any arrangements to administer this crossing must be purely civilian and humanitarian, totally separating the occupation's policies and its security and demographic objectives, thereby ensuring the fundamental rights of the population, foremost among them the right to a dignified life and freedom of movement.