With the bodies of its fighters still strewn on the battlefield, Hezbollah must bury its dead and provide succour to its supporters who bore the brunt of Israel's offensive, as the first steps on a long and costly road to recovery, four senior officials said.

Hezbollah believes the number of its fighters killed during 14 months of hostilities could reach several thousand, with the vast majority killed since Israel went on the offensive in September, three sources familiar with its operations say, citing previously unreported internal estimates.

One source said the Iran-backed group may have lost up to 4,000 people - well over 10 times the number killed in its month-long 2006 war with Israel. So far, Lebanese authorities have said some 3,800 people were killed in the current hostilities, without distinguishing fighters from civilians.

Hezbollah emerges shaken from top to bottom, its leadership still reeling from the killing of its former leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and its supporters made homeless en masse by the carpet bombing of Beirut's southern suburbs and the destruction of entire villages in the south.

With a ceasefire taking hold on Wednesday, Hezbollah's agenda includes working to re-establish its organisational structure fully, probing security breaches that helped Israel land so many painful blows, and a full review of the last year including its mistakes in underestimating Israel's technological capabilities, three other sources familiar with the group's thinking said.

For this story Reuters spoke to a dozen people who together provided details of some of the challenges facing Hezbollah as it seeks to pick itself up after the war. Most asked not to be named to speak about sensitive matters.

Hassan Fadallah, a senior Hezbollah politician, told Reuters the priority will be "the people."

"To shelter them, to remove the rubble, to bid farewell to the martyrs and, in the next phase, to rebuild," he said.

Israel's campaign has focused largely on Hezbollah's Shi'ite Muslim heartlands, where its supporters were badly hit. They include people still nursing casualties from Israel's attack on its mobile communications devices in September.

"I have a brother who was martyred, a brother-in-law who was wounded in the pager attacks, and my neighbours and relatives are all either martyrs, wounded or missing," said Hawraa, a woman from south Lebanon with family members who fight for Hezbollah.

"We want to collect our martyrs and bury them ... we want to rebuild our homes," said Hawraa, who stayed in her village until she was forced to flee by the Israeli assault in September. She declined to use her full name, citing safety fears.

The Israeli offensive displaced more than 1 million people, the bulk of them from areas where Hezbollah has sway.

A senior Lebanese official familiar with Hezbollah thinking said the group's focus would be squarely on securing their return and rebuilding their homes: "Hezbollah is like a wounded man. Does a wounded man get up and fight? A wounded man needs to tend to his wounds."

The official expected Hezbollah to carry out a wide-ranging policy review after the war, dealing with all major issues: Israel, its weapons, and the internal politics of Lebanon, where its weapons have long been a point of conflict.

Iran, which established Hezbollah in 1982, has promised to help with reconstruction. The costs are immense: The World Bank estimates $2.8 billion in damage to housing alone in Lebanon, with 99,000 homes partially or fully destroyed.

The senior Lebanese official said Tehran has a variety of ways to get funds to Hezbollah, without giving details.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a close Hezbollah ally, is urging wealthy Lebanese Shi'ites in the diaspora to send funds to help the displaced, two Lebanese officials said.

The officials also expected significant donations to come from Shi'ite religious foundations across the region.

Hezbollah did not immediately respond to a detailed request for comment for this story. Iran's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

'THE RESISTANCE' WILL CONTINUE

Hezbollah has indicated it intends to keep its arms, dashing hopes of Lebanese adversaries who predicted the pressures generated by the war would finally lead it to hand them to the state. Hezbollah officials have said the resistance - widely understood to mean its armed status - will continue.

Hezbollah opened fire in support of Palestinian ally Hamas on Oct. 8, 2023. Israel went on the offensive against the group in September, declaring the aim of securing the return home of 60,000 people evacuated from homes in the north.

Despite the resulting devastation, Hezbollah's Fadlallah said the resistance put up by its fighters in south Lebanon and the group's intensified rocket salvoes towards the end of the conflict showed Israel had failed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says its campaign has set back Hezbollah decades, eliminated its top leaders, destroyed most of its rockets, neutralised thousands of fighters, and obliterated its infrastructure near the border.

A senior U.S. official said Hezbollah was "extremely weak" at this moment, both militarily and politically. A Western diplomat echoed that assessment, saying Israel had the upper hand and had almost dictated the terms of its withdrawal.

The ceasefire terms agreed by Israel and Lebanon require Hezbollah to have no military presence in an area between the Israeli border and the Litani River, which meets the Mediterranean Sea some 30 km (20 miles) from the frontier.

Hezbollah, which approved the deal, has not declared how it intends to help implement those terms, including whether it actively hands its arms to Lebanese troops who are deploying into the south, or leaves the weapons for soldiers to find.

Israel complains Hezbollah, which is deeply rooted in south Lebanon, never implemented the same terms when they were agreed to end a previous war in 2006 war. Israel says the group was preparing for a large-scale assault into northern Israel, pointing to its military build-up at the frontier.

Andreas Krieg of King's College in London said Hezbollah had retained considerable capability.

The performance of its "core infantry fighters in southern Lebanon and rocket attacks deep into Israeli territory in recent days showed the group was still very, very capable," he said.

"But Hezbollah will be very much bogged down in the effort of rebuilding the infrastructure and also, most importantly, securing the funds to do so,” he said.

'REPAYING THE DEBT'

Hezbollah has been handing out cash to people affected by the hostilities since they began, paying $200 a month to civilians who stayed in frontline villages, and offering more as people were forced to flee the areas, according to recipients.

Since the start of the escalation in September, Hezbollah has been paying around $300 a month to help displaced families.

The group has made no secret of the military and financial support it gets from Iran, which shipped huge sums of cash to in 2006 to aid the homeless and help rebuild.

Hezbollah supporters say more will be on the way. One, citing conversations with a local Hezbollah official, said the group would cover a year of rent for the homeless in addition to furniture costs.

Addressing the Lebanese people in an October sermon, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said "the destruction will be replaced... repaying the debt to the wounded, bleeding Lebanon is our duty...".

The World Bank, in a preliminary estimate, put the cost in damage and losses to Lebanon at $8.5 billion, a bill that cannot be footed by the government, still suffering the consequences of a catastrophic financial collapse five years ago.

Gulf states Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia helped pay the $5 billion reconstruction bill in 2006, the last time Hezbollah and Israel went to war. But there has been no sign that these Sunni-led Arab states are ready to do so again.

Hezbollah conducted a lot of reconstruction work after the 2006 war, financed by Iran and using its construction wing. The project was directed by Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, a Hezbollah leader killed by Israel 11 days after Nasrallah, in a sign of the bigger challenges it will face this time round.

"For Hezbollah the priority is to guarantee the loyalty of the Shi’ite community. The destruction has been enormous and it will impact the organization," said Mohanand Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center.

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Costs of Israel-Hezbollah conflict on Lebanon, Israel

 Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah ceased fire under a deal that aims to end more than a year of hostilities ignited by the Gaza conflict.

Here are some of the main costs of the conflict, which escalated two months ago when Israel went on the offensive against the Iran-backed group.

CASUALTIES

At least 3,768 people have been killed in Lebanon and 15,699 wounded since October 2023, according to Lebanon's health ministry as of Nov. 24. The figures do not differentiate between Hezbollah fighters and civilians. The vast majority of casualties were inflicted after Israel went on the offensive in September.

The number of Hezbollah dead has yet to emerge. The group had announced the deaths of about 500 of its fighters in the hostilities up until the point that Israel launched its offensive in September, but stopped doing so at that point.

Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies, which has deep ties to the military establishment, says Hezbollah has lost a total of 2,450.

Hezbollah strikes have killed 45 civilians in northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

At least 73 Israeli soldiers have been killed in northern Israel, the Golan Heights, and in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israeli authorities.

DESTRUCTION

In Lebanon, the cost of damage to housing is estimated at $2.8 billion, with more than 99,000 housing units partially or fully destroyed, according a World Bank report.

In Beirut's southern suburb alone, a stronghold of Hezbollah, Israeli strikes have demolished at least 262 buildings, according to the American University Beirut Urban Lab.

The Israeli military has also done extensive damage in villages and towns in the Bekaa Valley and south Lebanon, both areas where Hezbollah holds sway.

The World Bank report estimated damage in agriculture at $124 million, with losses of more than $1.1 billion, driven by lost harvest caused by destruction of crops and livestock and displacement of farmers.

In Israel, Israeli authorities estimate property damage to be at least 1 billion shekels ($273 million), with thousands of homes, farms and businesses damaged or destroyed.

The bulk of the damage in Israel has been inflicted in areas adjacent to the Lebanese border, pummelled by Hezbollah rockets.

About 55,000 acres of forestry, nature reserve, parks and open lands in northern Israel and the Golan heights have been burnt down since the start of the war, Israeli authorities say.

DISPLACEMENT

As of Nov. 18, over 886,000 people have been displaced within Lebanon, according to International Organization for Migration (IOM) and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Over 540,000 people have fled Lebanon to Syria since the war started, data by UNHCR showed.

In Israel, some 60,000 people evacuated homes in the north.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

The World Bank gave a preliminary estimate of $8.5 billion in damage and losses to Lebanon in a Nov. 14 report. Lebanon's real GDP is projected to contract by 5.7% in 2024, compared to a pre-conflict growth estimate of 0.9%.

Driven by the destruction of crops and livestock and the displacement of farmers, especially in the southern regions, the agriculture sector has seen losses exceeding $1.1 billion over the past 12 months. Tourism and hospitality, key contributors to Lebanon’s economy, have been hit hardest, with losses reaching $1.1 billion, according to the World Bank.

For Israel, the conflict with Hezbollah has compounded the economic impact of the war in Gaza, straining public finances.

The budget deficit has surged to approximately 8% of GDP, prompting all three major credit rating agencies to downgrade Israel's rating this year.

The conflict has also exacerbated supply chain disruptions, driving inflation to 3.5%, above the central bank's 1-3% target range. In response, the central bank has maintained high interest rates to curb inflation, keeping mortgage rates elevated and adding further pressure on households.

Israel's economy in the third quarter rebounded somewhat from a weak second quarter, expanding by an annualised 3.8%, according to the government's preliminary estimate.

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An Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire: here's what we know

A cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah brokered by the U.S. and France took effect in Lebanon early Wednesday, raising hopes of ending more than a year of cross-border strikes and a full-scale war that has killed thousands.

The cease-fire began at 4 a.m. local time (9 p.m. ET) after it was approved by Israel’s security cabinet and then announced by President Joe Biden. It appeared to be holding in the immediate hours after coming into effect.

The war between Israel and Hezbollah was sparked by the war in Gaza, where Israel launched a military offensive to root out Hezbollah's ally Hamas − both of whom are supported by Iran − after the latter attacked Israel on Oct. 7 last year. Here's what we know about the Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire deal and the implications for the Middle East region.

What are the terms of the cease-fire?

It's intended to be permanent. However, the deal stipulates a 60-day pause in hostilities to allow Hezbollah's Lebanon-based fighters to retreat from the so-called Blue Line, an unofficial Israel-Lebanon border area that runs parallel to the Litani River. Over the next two months, Israel will gradually withdraw its forces from Lebanon.

Who will monitor the agreement's implementation?

The U.S. and France, though the deal largely mirrors an existing United Nations Security Council resolution − 1701 − which ended a war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. Under 1701, only Lebanon's government and U.N. peacekeeping personnel, known as UNIFIL, are permitted to keep forces and weapons south of the Litani River.

U.S. and French diplomats and mediators will work with Lebanon's army and UNIFIL to deter potential violations of the cease-fire but neither American nor French combat forces will be deployed to the area.

What does the cease-fire mean for the war in Gaza?

The deal does not directly address the war in Gaza that erupted after Hamas attacked communities in southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping dozens back to the Palestinian territory. Israel has killed more than 45,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Hezbollah previously insisted it would only halt its attacks on Israel if Israel agreed to stop fighting in Gaza. The cease-fire may nevertheless, if it holds, help push, some reports have suggested, Hamas toward seeking a truce. The White House has said it intends to begin a renewed push for a Gaza cease-fire in the coming days.

What does the cease-fire mean for civilians?

Civilians have borne the brunt of the conflict, with many killed or injured and an estimated million-plus people displaced from their homes in Lebanon and Israel. Lebanese media outlets reported that thousands of people were returning to their homes Wednesday in southern Lebanon despite warnings from Israel's military not to do so.

In Israel, some residents who over the last year fled northern communities amid Hezbollah shelling and missile attacks questioned whether the cease-fire would lead to a lasting peace.

"Despite the difficulties in my personal life, I’d rather we continued fighting and only agree to a ceasefire when we’re really in control," Miro Vahknin, from the coastal city of Nahariya, told the Times of Israel.

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