“There is nothing yet in terms of allocation for reconstruction,” Nasser Yasin, the environment minister and head of the government’s crisis cell told the BBC on Wednesday.

“We have some good indications, some pledges from friends of Lebanon,” he said. “But we estimate we are going to need billions of dollars this time. The level of destruction is probably six to 10 times what it was in 2006.”

Israel has said it was acting solely against Hezbollah in its strikes on Nabatieh, and not against the Lebanese population. Yasin accused the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of “urbicide” for its widespread destruction of the city.

On a visit to Nabatieh on Wednesday afternoon, Imran Riza, the UN’s deputy special co-ordinator for Lebanon, told the BBC the scale of what needed to be done was “enormous”.

“The past two and a half months, particularly, have been massively destructive,” he said. “It is a very long road back.”