He picked up a doll, threw it on the dirty pile of clothes he'd salvaged, then helped other workers pull out a crumpled sofa.

"It's bad luck. The bomb fell here just one day before the end of the war," said the man, who asked not to be identified.

A large, yellow Hezbollah banner floated over the debris, just like at many other sites across the southern Lebanon town of Srifa, where residents were just beginning to dig out from the wreckage of Israel's 34-day bombardment.

They weren't waiting for the Lebanese government or international donors to step in. Hezbollah — which gained huge clout during its fierce fighting with Israel — has now refocused its efforts on reconstruction in a classic postwar step of securing hearts and minds.

Shortly after the United Nations-brokered cease-fire halted fighting between Israel and Hezbollah on Aug. 14, the guerrilla group's Sheik Hassan Nasrallah vowed to rebuild every broken home in Lebanon within a year, and to financially support war victims.

South Lebanon's roads — pockmarked with bomb craters and lined with pictures of "martyrs" who died fighting for Hezbollah — teem with a new kind of warrior: engineers from Jihad al benneyeh, or holy war for reconstruction.

Residents in Srifa say the Hezbollah engineers have visited each home, assessing the damage and distributing US$10,000 in cash for each destroyed house.

The Israeli army flattened some 300 of Srifa's houses during the war. Another 800 homes — more than half the town — were seriously damaged, said town council governor Afif Najdeh.

"All the infrastructure is destroyed. It will take years, and millions, to rebuild," he said.

Mohammed Hussein, tasked with lifting slabs of concrete at one excavation site on the outskirts of Srifa, said the town council paid him US$10 a day for the work.

"For me, it's good money," said the 19-year-old who'd made plans to go to university before the war broke out.

Najdeh, who described himself as apolitical, was elusive about where the money came from. He said he couldn't raise local taxes because his constituents were too poor, and lost their largest asset when Israeli attacks destroyed tobacco fields that fuel the local economy.

He said the bulk of reconstruction was being handled by the central government, which hired a contractor to clear the rubble.

But Srifa council member Hassan Ramadan said rebuilding was mostly in the hands of Hezbollah and Amal, another Shiite Muslim group. Ramadan, an Amal member, said Hezbollah was gave his party large sums of cash for its help rebuilding.

"The money comes in large piles of dollars from Beirut," said Ramadan. "It's meant to be a secret, but everybody knows Hezbollah receives it from Iran," he said.

His son Raed, whose damaged Internet cafe entitles him to compensation money, said he'd seen a heavily protected cash convoy arrive in Srifa two days earlier. "A Hezbollah man with a big beard carried it in a large bag on his shoulder, like Santa Claus," he said.

He and others in Srifa declined to elaborate on where Hezbollah keeps the money and runs logistics.

Neither would Hezbollah chief spokesman Hussein Rahal comment on the group's reconstruction efforts. "We don't have an exact budget for now. There are many steps and it will take a long while," he told The Associated Press by telephone from Beirut.

Not all residents were satisfied with the pace of compensation and reconstruction.

Srifa resident Abou Hassan said he received no money for his damaged home, nor for his mother's flattened house.

"It's a mafia — if you don't support Hezbollah or Amal, you get nothing," he bellowed. "America and Iran are fighting their little war in Lebanon, and I don't get a dime for my broken house," he said, echoing a widely-held opinion among Lebanese that their country was caught in a broader Mideast power play.

Neighbor Jamal Farhat chuckled as he sucked on his water pipe. He received US$30,000 for his house and that of his sister and mother, all leveled by Israeli bombs.

"Hezbollah even gave me US$5,000 for my grandmother, because she's 101 years old and I take care of her," he said.

Most residents fled Srifa after a devastating airstrike destroyed 15 homes on July 19, killing some 30 people within minutes. Farhat was among those who left, but he drove back to the town twice a week to bring food to Hezbollah fighters.

"If I knew how to use a gun, of course I'd have joined the fighting," he said.

He said 50 local guerrillas and about 450 fighters from other parts of the country had held Srifa for the duration of the conflict, fighting off Israeli tanks who came within 4 kilometers (2.5 miles).

Farhat said he thought his home was targeted because it was next to a Hezbollah battery that fired rockets at Israel, 25 kilometers (15 miles) to the south. Others in Srifa said they believed their homes were unintentionally destroyed when goats roaming loose in the empty town were triggered attacks by Israeli drones that fire automatically when they detect movement.

But all the residents approached by a visiting reporter said they were confident Hezbollah would rebuild their town within a year.

Ramadan, the town councilor, said Hezbollah would win even more support by doing so. The guerrilla group was gearing up for a landslide vote in municipal elections in two years.

"Today it's all right because everybody is friends," he said. "But who knows how things will be tomorrow." (AP)