AITA EL-CHAAB, Lebanon - Six months after a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah brought peace to this war-wrecked southern Lebanese border town, its people are slowly rebuilding their lives. But a recent cross-border shootout, Israel's frequent overflights and Hezbollah's refusal to disarm, are ominous signs that the summer battles are far from being resolved.

Although Hezbollah has openly boasted of resupplying its firepower and Israel has warned of the growing guerrilla threat, in Aita el-Chaab — where fighting erupted last summer after guerrillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers — there is no visible sign of any militant buildup.

Instead, Lebanese troops now man posts in this former guerrilla stronghold and U.N. peacekeepers pass through on routine patrols.

But the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah's influence is unquestioned. Proudly displayed in the town's main street are portraits of eight "martyrs" — Hezbollah fighters killed here during the war. At the town entrance, the black-turbaned, bespectacled Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah smiles down from a poster atop a one-story garage.

Aita el-Chaab bore the brunt of Israeli bombardment last summer. Dozens of houses lie flattened. Others are partially collapsed or pockmarked by shells, with barely room for cars to pass through. Bulldozers rumble on, construction workers hammer at concrete and children play in a roofless shell of a house.

Aita el-Chaab's about 5,000 people returned soon after the fighting, many now forced to stay with relatives as some 300 houses were destroyed and another 1,000 damaged.

"Things are back to normal, to where they were," said Hana Awad, a 26-year-old Shiite mother of three who fled north and returned home after the fighting. Her husband is rebuilding the family home while she tends their grocery store. "We are used to this," she said, unconcerned about the routine Israeli reconnaissance drones that fly overhead.

The militant group, along with the Gulf Arab country of Qatar, are funding most of Aita el-Chaab's reconstruction, townspeople say. But Awad and other townspeople could not say — or perhaps would not even know — if Hezbollah fighters are still around. The fighters have always been in hiding and concealed weapons, they say.

When a journalist showed up in town, a teenager, sporting the faintest hint of a beard, walks up to inquire. He says he's from Hezbollah.

Imad Srour, the local town official, said Hezbollah members have remained put in their communities but insists that, as in the past, fighters are not visible. The 35-year-old's loyalties are clear — a Nasrallah portrait hangs on a wall at home.

Downhill at the border fence — where Hezbollah guerrillas snatched the two Israeli soldiers on July 12 and killed three others in a raid that triggered 34 days of fighting — it's quiet. Occasional Israeli army patrols kick up dust on one side and Lebanese shepherds hurry goats on the other.

Up to about 1,200 people were killed in Lebanon during the fighting, according to tallies by government agencies, humanitarian groups and The Associated Press. Most were Lebanese civilians.

A total of 159 Israelis — 120 soldiers and 39 civilians — were also killed in Hezbollah clashes with Israeli troops and by Hezbollah rockets lobbed into Israel.

With the Aug. 14 cease-fire, the United Nations created a buffer zone that includes Aita el-Chaab and is now patrolled by more than 12,000 U.N. peacekeepers and 15,000 Lebanese army troops.

In early February, Lebanese troops opened fire at the Israeli army after they said an Israeli bulldozer had crossed inside Lebanon. No one was hurt, but the brief exchange underlined how volatile the situation at the border remains.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, called UNIFIL, is not tasked with hunting Hezbollah's weapons and must tip the Lebanese military about arms they spot.

UNIFIL spokesman Liam McDowell says they've come "across dozens of arms caches" that include rockets and launchers that were seized and bunkers that were "put out of service" by the Lebanese military in the buffer zone, which stretches from the international border in the south to the Litani River in the north, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) wide at the most.

North of it, Hezbollah is believed to be fortifying. In its strongholds in eastern Lebanon and south Beirut, the militants call the shots and the preoccupied army is too weak to take them on. Hezbollah is trying to force out the U.S.-backed Lebanese government by staging ongoing protests in central Beirut. The army is busy keeping apart the rival groups in Beirut, where street violence in January killed eight people.

Israel, meanwhile, has accused Hezbollah of continuing to smuggle arms through the border with Syria and has hinted that a regrouped Hezbollah will have to be dealt with at some later point. The Lebanese defense minister denies that arms are being smuggled.

Nasrallah, who previously said his guerrillas have raised their stock of missiles to 33,000, leaves no doubts about the militants' arsenal and refusal to disarm.

"We in the resistance have weapons, and we openly declare that we have weapons, that we are completing our preparedness for a greater and more dangerous stage," he recently said. -AP