Lebanese Displacement Crisis: Children and Families in Dire Need of Support

Lebanese Displacement Crisis

Lebanese displacement crisis deepens as Israeli air strikes surge

The humanitarian crisis in Lebanon is escalating dramatically, with over one million people displaced due to intensified Israeli airstrikes and ongoing violence, particularly affecting regions like southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and Beirut. Aid agencies, including the UNHCR and IOM, are struggling to deliver essential relief amid volatile security conditions, with recent reports indicating a staggering increase in conflict-related deaths and injuries. Many displaced individuals, including a significant number of children, are living in overcrowded shelters or public spaces, facing dire living conditions and urgent medical needs.

Meanwhile, the situation for Syrian refugees remains precarious as they grapple with the choice of returning to a wartorn homeland or staying in Lebanon, where instability persists. The IOM seeks $32.46 million to assist those affected, as part of a broader $426 million emergency appeal by the UN to support over one million people in need.

Key Concepts

• The United Nations has warned about the escalating displacement crisis in Lebanon due to intensified Israeli airstrikes targeting Hezbollah militants.
• Over one million people have been displaced in Lebanon since the conflict erupted following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
• The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reports that 400,000 individuals have been displaced in the last two weeks alone.
• Many displaced individuals are seeking refuge in collective shelters, primarily repurposed schools, amid deteriorating living conditions.
• The humanitarian situation in Lebanon is exacerbated by heavy shelling in southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and Beirut.
• Syrian authorities are maintaining open crossings for refugees, despite challenges at the border and recent Israeli airstrikes.
• Approximately 60% of new arrivals in Lebanon are children and adolescents, some of whom are unaccompanied.
• The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported a significant increase in conflict-related deaths and injuries in the region.
• Humanitarian efforts are intensifying in Syria to support vulnerable refugees and displaced individuals amidst ongoing conflict.
• The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is seeking $32.46 million to assist 400,000 individuals impacted by the crisis over the next three months.
• The United Nations has launched a nearly $426 million inter-agency emergency appeal to provide life-saving support to over one million affected people in Lebanon.
• The situation is particularly dire for 180,000 migrant workers in Lebanon, many of whom are being abandoned by their employers.

The United Nations has warned that the Lebanese displacement crisis is deepening as aid agencies scramble to protect and assist tens of thousands of people fleeing to safety. The warning comes as Israel’s airstrikes surge in size and scope as it launches “limited, localized and targeted” operations against Hezbollah militants.

“As the humanitarian situation deteriorates, UNHCR is reinforcing the delivery of core relief supplies to meet growing needs and prepare for further escalation,” said Rula Amin, UNHCR’s senior communications adviser for the Middle East and North Africa. “The volatile security situation and ongoing Israeli airstrikes led to delays in relief supplies,” she told reporters in Geneva in Amman, Jordan, on Friday, noting that an airlift carrying life-saving medical trauma kits and more than 20,000 thermal blankets had been delayed.

The Lebanese government estimates that more than a million people have been displaced in the country since Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, sparking the war in Gaza.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has counted 400,000 displaced in the past two weeks, with more than 165,000 living in 800 collective shelters across the country.

“These are schools that the government has opened urgently,” said Mathieu Luciano, head of the IOM’s Lebanon office.

“The situation is really deteriorating rapidly. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes in the past two weeks. Road traffic is choking. People are sleeping in parks, on the streets, and on the beaches,” he said. The number of people displaced “continues to rise as heavy shelling continues in southern Lebanon, the Bekaa, Beirut, and other areas,” he said. In addition to those displaced internally, tens of thousands of Lebanese and Syrians are leaving the country through legal and irregular channels.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) said more than 15,000 people have fled to Syria. That number has dropped significantly since an Israeli airstrike on Friday cut off vehicle traffic at the Masnaa border crossing.

UNHCR’s Amin said there was a “big hole in the no-man’s land between Lebanon and Syria, making it very difficult for vehicles and people to get through the crossing,” and that some “people who are determined to flee are crossing on foot.”

Israel said the attack on the Syrian border crossing was to stop Hezbollah from “smuggling weapons into Lebanon.”

Amin said despite the complexity, Syrian authorities were keeping the border open while people continued to flee from Lebanon to Syria through Masna and three other crossings.

She said Syrian refugees face a difficult decision whether to return to the country they have fled for the past 13 years or to stay in Lebanon.

She said, “Due to bombardment, lack of adequate shelter, lack of access to services,” Syrian refugees must choose “whether to continue to stay in Lebanon and risk their lives more and more or to return and cross the border to Syria, taking into account all the other risks.”

“The numbers we see seem to indicate that they feel the risk of bombardment is high at this time,” so they are returning, Amin said.

“About 60 percent of the new arrivals are children and adolescents. Some of the children have arrived on their own, without their families,” she said. “When they flee bombings, their families arrive extremely exhausted, and some need urgent medical treatment. Most of the new arrivals are heading to their towns and villages of origin to reunite with their loved ones.”

In its daily brief update on Lebanon’s humanitarian crisis, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that in the past two weeks, “conflict-related deaths have increased by more than 200 percent to 1,699, and the number of injured has exceeded 9,781.”

Meanwhile, UNICEF said more than 690 children in Lebanon have been injured “as a result of the sharp escalation of conflict in recent weeks.”

Aid agencies are increasing humanitarian operations to provide shelter for the homeless, food for the hungry, and medical care for the wounded and sick. UNHCR and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent are assisting authorities in transporting thousands of the most vulnerable refugees across the border to their final destinations.

“But the suffering of those who cross the border does not stop at the border,” Amin stressed. “After 13 years of crisis, many are returning to destroyed homes, damaged infrastructure, and paralyzed basic services. When they arrived, there were no resources to meet basic needs. “

More than 7.2 million people remain displaced within Syria, a country going through a severe economic crisis,”

said Luciano, the IOM official. The agency has stepped up emergency life-saving assistance to provide basic relief items as well as protection services and health support to those displaced within the country.

He highlighted the plight of Lebanon’s 180,000 migrant workers, many of them female domestic workers, from Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Sudan, Bangladesh and the Philippines. “They are deeply affected by the violence in this country,” he said. “We are receiving more and more reports of migrant domestic workers being abandoned by their Lebanese employers and either living on the streets or staying at home,” he said. “We are receiving more and more requests from migrants seeking assistance to return home, and several member states asking for help to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon.”

“This will require a lot of money, which we currently do not have,” he said, and the IOM is appealing for $32.46 million to help 400,000 people affected by the crisis over the next three months.

This is in addition to the nearly $426 million interagency emergency appeal issued by the United Nations to provide life-saving assistance to more than a million people directly affected or displaced by the Lebanese crisis.