Reconstruction frozen, ISF bars illegal building as work begins in north Israel
More than 100,000 residents of southern Lebanese border towns are still displaced, while Lebanese authorities have been informed that funds for reconstruction are currently frozen pending “the demarcation of the land border with Israel, security stability and transparency in the distribution of aid,” a media report said.
“The international community will impose restrictions on the reconstruction aid if corruption continues or reconstruction gets politically exploited,” informed sources told al-Akhbar newspaper, quoting World Bank and EU officials.
Internal Security Forces patrols meanwhile went to the southern towns of Mays al-Jabal, Kfar Kila and Shaqra to crack down on illegal construction operations, the daily said.
ISF members “inspected five construction sites in the western neighborhood” of Mays al-Jabal, issuing a fine against members of the Ashour family who were illegally building a small, 80-square-meters home on a land lot that they own, al-Akhbar added.
According to the town’s mayor Abdel Menhem Shqeir, the ISF acted following a report from its Intelligence Branch about the construction of an illegal structure.
“They demanded halting the construction works pending the acquirement of the necessary licenses,” Shqeir added.
He noted that he gave the ISF documents proving that those behind the illegal construction works had their homes totally destroyed in the latest Israeli war on Lebanon and that are “building a small house until the state begins dispensing compensations and launched the reconstruction process.”
“The same scene was repeated in the Houra area between Kfar Kila and Deir Mimas, where Ali H. began building a room, a kitchen and a bathroom next to his destroyed home, before security forces halted the construction works,” al-Akhbar added.
Guarded by tanks and hundreds of soldiers, Israeli technical teams meanwhile started inspecting settlements in northern Israel near Lebanon’s border, after local administrations decided to demolish hundreds of homes that are no longer inhabitable due to attacks during the latest war with Hezbollah, the newspaper said.
