During the July 2006 war, the slogan “We Will Rebuild It Better Than Before” emerged as a promise made by Hezbollah to ease the grief of those who had lost their homes in the Israeli war, and to reassure its support base that it would confront the destruction.

Since then, and with each recurring war and renewed loss of homes, the slogan has resurfaced as a repeated promise: destruction may happen, but reconstruction will inevitably follow.

“We Will Rebuild It Better Than Before”, this slogan played a role in erasing the very idea of the home, its intimacy, and its place in people’s lives. It reduced the home to an acceptable loss, to a collection of walls and stones that could simply be rebuilt. It suggested that a house could be replaced regardless of the meanings it carried, overlooking the fact that the beauty of a home lies in its emotional value to those who inhabit it.

Perhaps the slogan could once be understood within its earlier context, when destruction was still relatively limited and the country had not yet faced a collective catastrophe. Today, however, the slogan itself has become tragic. It no longer convinces anyone. Instead, its function has become the normalization of destruction and the erasure of villages carried out by Israel, presenting it as a painful yet survivable reality from which people are simply expected to rise again.

It may once have made sense to speak of rebuilding homes “better than before,” back when entire villages were not being wiped off the map, and when reconstruction still seemed possible. But how can homes return “better than before” when villages themselves are being erased? Who will restore the villages, their memory, their alleyways, and the heritage features that have disappeared, while Hezbollah continues down the very path that led to this catastrophe and deepens it further?

And why normalize the demolition of entire areas with explosives by simultaneously emptying the meaning of the home itself, trivializing a loss that is as large as a lifetime? What about the houses that became graves for their own families? How can they ever return “better than before” without the people who once filled them, after the very place meant to offer comfort and safety collapsed upon them in tragedy?

What is being destroyed today is not merely a house, but an entire environment. Who, then, can compensate people for the loss of their neighbors, their communities, and the social fabric that once surrounded them?

How Can Those Who Do Not Understand the Value of a Home Claim to “Defend the Land”?

It seems to me that those who repeat this phrase every time destruction occurs have never truly understood the meaning of home or land. How can someone who does not grasp the value of a home claim to be “defending the land”? More than that, how can they attempt to suppress people’s grief over losing their homes and land, denying them even the right to mourn?

What is even more painful is that those silencing people’s sorrow are the very ones who brought this destruction upon them. They stripped homes from their owners long before they were demolished, deciding that many of these houses were fair game to use without their owners’ consent. And when they chose to enter the war once again, they did so fully aware of its foreseeable consequences. Those who made that decision are not only refusing to acknowledge these losses but appear willing to accept even greater devastation instead of seeking to prevent it.

But what is a home?

A person spends a lifetime searching for a home where they can finally feel safe and at peace. They pour into it their spirit, their labor, and sometimes even their health. They fill it with details that reflect their emotions, beliefs, ideas, and personal tastes, until the home begins to resemble its owner, becoming part of their identity, and shaping the identity of those who grow up within it.

A home carries the memories of its people: the photographs and secrets accumulated over lifetimes, moments of joy and grief alike. It carries the presence of those who have passed away. But can anyone truly rebuild homes in the image of the people who lived in them? And how can anyone promise grieving families that their homes will return “better than before,” believing this could possibly comfort them? Why is the promise not simply to rebuild, but to rebuild “better”?

This phrase, endlessly repeated by ideological voices, has come to suggest that those who destroy homes understand their value more than those who claim to “defend the land.” Those who demolish homes understand exactly what they mean. In Arabic, the similarity between the words manzil (home) and manzila (status or worth) captures something essential about the meaning of a home itself.

Those who destroy homes know they are destroying something deep within the people who lived in them, as part of a policy of collective punishment that must be condemned and whose harm must be exposed. Those who blow up houses understand that they are not merely tearing down walls, but erasing everything those homes carried in meaning and memory.

The challenge is not to deny this destruction or pretend indifference to it, but to refuse to trivialize it. The real challenge lies in seeking a way out of endless conflict and in making people’s lives and interests the priority.

Wounds That Last a Lifetime

What those who insist on minimizing these losses fail to understand is that devastation on this scale does not end with the passing of the moment. These are wounds that remain open for the rest of one’s life, wounds whose bleeding only deepens with time. Sooner or later, people will come to grasp the magnitude of what they lost in far harsher ways.

Today, homes are destroyed alongside everything around them. Neighbors’ houses collapse with them, sometimes burying their residents beneath the rubble. Alongside the homes, livelihoods are destroyed too: agricultural lands, shops, factories, and entire means of survival. With every home demolished, an entire community is shattered.

United Nations experts have used the term “domicide” to describe the destruction of homes, arguing that it is not merely a material loss, but an act with profound psychological and social consequences. Reports have highlighted the psychological impact of such a crime, describing it as a deep social and emotional trauma for homeowners. It is a trauma whose harshest effects may only fully emerge later, once the war ends and tens of thousands of survivors realize there is no home left to return to.