“This shows just how much the party cares for the people,” said Ayman Jaber after collecting a bundle of dollars wrapped in a tissue from one of several Hezbollah centres overseeing the compensation scheme.

His apartment, home to seven, had been flattened in Haret Hreik in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah’s main offices were based until they were levelled by Israeli air strikes.

”People already had faith in Hezbollah, this will strengthen their faith,” Jaber said.

Hezbollah has pledged to give enough cash to rent and furnish an apartment for a year to the homeless from 15,000 destroyed dwellings. An unfurnished two-bedroom apartment in the southern suburbs can be rented for $300 a month.

Hezbollah has not said how it is financing the scheme, which appears likely to cost at least $150 million and was launched just days after a U.N. truce ended the 34-day war with Israel.

An Israeli general expressed concern on Thursday that Iran would be first to fund reconstruction in Lebanon, where the state has historically provided few services. Shi’ite Muslim Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah, a Shi’ite group.

“Nobody helped us other than Hezbollah,” said Fayrouz Ali Jaber, 53, as she waited for the $12,000 which she said she would use to house her family of nine. “The state hasn’t helped us, or looked out for us. It doesn’t even know us.”

Her home was also in Haret Hreik. “It was a deluxe flat, furnished with everything,” she said. “Nothing survived.”

 Firmly in control

Hezbollah is firmly in control of the capital’s southern suburbs, policing the streets and deploying men to start cleaning up. In some places, building after building have been reduced to rubble. The war forced most residents from the area.

A portrait of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was pasted to a mechanical digger shifting one pile of rubble.

Posters in the area claim victory for Hezbollah, and some homeless Shias said that was more important to them than the compensation money.

“I do not put my hopes on the state as much as I do on the party,” said Mohammed Qamh, after he filed his application for compensation. “Sayyed Hassan will not abandon anybody.”

Hezbollah asks the homeless to produce property deeds and an identity card to claim the cash. It regularly advertises the procedure on its al-Manar television station, telling people where they should go and offering contact numbers for help.

A Hezbollah official at one centre said 120 families had received $12,000 each within the first two hours of the operation on Friday.

“We have full information on all the buildings that have been destroyed or damaged,” he said. “Later on, we will either pay for new flats or rebuild the buildings that were destroyed.”

Hezbollah’s popular support has been built over years partly because it offers health, education and social services.

It rebuilt homes destroyed during a war with Israel in 1996. ”They rebuilt 5,000 homes. But this is unprecedented,” Hezbollah expert Amal Saad Ghorayeb said.