Hezbollah flags are everywhere on the road towards Israel. We drive into the war zone in Southern Lebanon to find a more complex story than the news and world governments are willing to admit.

"You should get a picture of the flags," says my fixer.

She is from Southern Lebanon but bristles at the paramilitary imagery lining the road. "This does not mean what you think," she says, nodding while I take a shot. "Not everyone is a member of Hezbollah. They put these flags everywhere because they want the world to believe everyone is."

The yellow flags hang from lampposts, balconies, and piles of rubble that used to be homes. The field is yellow, the emblem in the middle green: the words Party of God in hard Kufic script, a globe, a book, a sword, a branch of seven leaves. And at the center, a fist gripping a rifle.

Hezbollah shape-shifts depending on who is looking. For some it is a terrorist group of fanatics; for others, an Iranian proxy, a band of freedom fighters, a parallel government that binds fresh wounds and rebuilds houses. The reason Israel occupies a strip of Lebanese territory, or the only force that can restore Beirut's sovereignty.