This hot, dusty town is Hizbullah's "village of martyrs". Since the Shia Muslim movement was founded in 1982 to fight Israeli occupation forces, 73 men from Jibsheet have died attacking the Israelis or their Lebanese allies, many on suicide missions.
Artificial flowers and the dead men's photographs, encased in glass boxes, decorate graves in the "martyrs' cemetery". They died too soon to see the bitter fruit of their struggle: the Israelis' imminent withdrawal from Lebanon.
"When a man dies of natural causes or in a car crash, his family are grief-stricken," Sheikh Ismail Harb explained before taking us to see the tomb of his brother, Sheikh Ragheb Harb, one of Hizbullah's heroes. "But the mother of a martyr is calm and serene. Death, martyrdom and victory are synonymous for us. One of our favourite slogans is, `Either victory or martyrdom'."
His older brother was assassinated, allegedly by an Israeli agent, in 1984. Sheikh Abdel-Karim Obeid, Sheikh Ragheb's successor, was kidnapped by an Israeli helicopter five years later and has been held hostage in Israel ever since. When we met Sheikh Obeid's son, Sajid, he said he felt certain his father would return home soon.
No one, not even the Israelis, disputes Hizbullah's victory. And despite the misfortunes of his two predecessors as imam of Jibsheet's main mosque - and the constant talk of death and martyrdom - Sheikh Ismail and other Hizbullah members smile and laugh constantly these days.
"Jibsheet had 20 martyrs before, and now we have more than 70," Sheikh Ismail said. "It is only natural that a person who feels their jihad [holy war] is about to bear fruit is happier. It is comparable to marrying and having a child."
The "fruit" is the Israeli retreat, already under way. Over the past 18 years Hizbullah has several times stormed Israel's compounds and those of the South Lebanon Army (SLA), Israel's proxy militia, to plant its yellow flag with the green Kalashnikov forming the words "Allahu Akbar", in their enemies' positions. Now Hizbullah is waiting to see its flag raised over the Israeli fort at Beaufort Castle, and above the compound at Dabsheh near Jibsheet.
The group is determined to capture tanks and weapons and parade them through Shia villages. But there will be no victory marches in Christian villages, Sheikh Ismail adds. "The Christians have been indoctrinated to believe that Hizbullah is coming to kill them."
The fate of the SLA is of acute interest to Hizbullah. The majority of its militiamen are now Shia, often teenagers forced into service against their will. Hizbullah wants vengeance against the SLA's murderers and torturers, but says it will show clemency towards the others.
Two days ago a leading Hizbullah sheikh promised his group would pardon any member of the SLA who killed "an Israeli or one of his own leaders". For the past three months Hizbullah's Al Manar television station has broadcast a Hebrew video showing the funeral of an Israeli soldier and urging Israeli forces to mutiny rather than die in Lebanon.
As the withdrawal approaches, SLA men have been sneaking out of the occupied zone to surrender to the Lebanese army. In the Irish Battalion area of UNIFIL, nine SLA men surrendered last month.
However, Sheikh Ismail believes it is unlikely that Israel will leave southern Lebanon in peace. "This is the first time that the Israelis have been beaten by Muslims, and they despise us for it," he said.
The Hizbullah's Katyusha rockets were, he claimed, sufficient to deter Israel from bombarding Lebanon. "There will be more assassinations, the killing of civilians by car-bombs," Sheikh Ismail predicted. Israel used these methods to destabilise Beirut and Sidon after pulling out in 1985, he said. "This is the nature of the enemy. They are cowards when confronted face to face, but use their intelligence apparatus and covert means in order to avenge themselves and sow discord internally."
Hizbullah leaders say that if its conditions of a full withdrawal behind internationally recognised borders, the disarmament of the SLA and the release of all Lebanese prisoners held by Israel are met, it will not attack northern Israel once the pullout is completed. Sheikh Ismail spoke warmly of Hizbullah's main mentor, Iran, but dodged a question about the group's relations with its Syrian allies.
Back in Beirut, some of his fellow Hizbullah members are worried that Syria might try to push the group into attacking Israel after the withdrawal, for example, by planting car-bombs and making the Lebanese believe the Israelis did it. Damascus, they argue, has no other way to put pressure on Israel to return the Syrian Golan Heights.
Hizbullah is determined to avoid being manipulated. But it would not be the first army to win a war and lose the peace.