For weeks, the Lebanese political party and paramilitary group Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israeli forces across the country’s southern border, raising fears that hostilities that began on 7 October between Hamas and Israel could soon engulf Lebanon.
No stranger to the effects of war with Israel, Lebanon’s population is bracing for the worst. The government, NGOs, and civil society groups are scrambling together contingencies in case the fighting escalates, but the country – already battered from years of crisis – is ill-prepared to cope with the humanitarian fallout from an all-out war between Hezbollah and Israel.
Since 2019, Lebanon has been straining under what the World Bank has described as one of the world’s worst economic crises. People are struggling to make ends meet, the country’s infrastructure is worn down and under-resourced, and political bickering and rampant corruption have paralysed the public sector.
Since the clashes along the border began, more than 19,000 people have already reportedly left their homes in south Lebanon. Fields lined with olive trees laden with fruit have been left deserted, disrupting a harvest season that serves as an important source of income for many families.
People in Lebanon have long anticipated the eruption of another round of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel. The 7 October incursion into Israel by Hamas – the Palestinian political and militant group that governs the Gaza Strip – followed by Israel’s retaliatory bombardment and siege of Gaza has brought the situation along the Lebanese southern border to the brink.
Wahiba Termoss, 55, is one of those who has already been displaced. She is from the small southern village of Dibbine, just 10 kilometres from the border with Israel. But as the skirmishes between Israel and Hezbollah began to intensify, her husband insisted she go and stay with their daughter in Beirut’s southern suburbs while he remained behind to watch over their home.
Termoss is now wracked with anxiety and indecision. “I do not know what is best. Do I stay in Beirut? Do I return to my village to join my husband who has refused to leave the house? When will this be over?” she said.
“Our village and most border towns are empty,” Termoss told The New Humanitarian. “Men sent their wives and children to stay with relatives in Beirut and the Beqaa, or rented apartments in areas that so far seem safer, while they stayed put to protect our homes in case of an Israeli invasion.”
Like most Lebanese people, Termoss vividly remembers the last all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. It lasted 34 days, killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, displaced approximately one million, and left much of the country’s infrastructure in ruins. Its legacy still lingers in the form of unexploded ordnance and the trauma carried by a war-weary population.
"We have no room in our memory, nor can our nerves handle living through more wars,” Termoss said, glued to her phone and television following the latest news.
Lack of doctors and medications
A war would put tremendous strain on Lebanon’s weak and over-stretched public services.
“The Lebanese health sector is already in a dire state,” Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad told The New Humanitarian by phone. “This is due to multiple recent crises, including the severe economic situation, the migration of doctors and medical corps, and shortages in medicine and medical supplies.”
Since the onset of its economic crisis in 2019, Lebanon’s “GDP has declined by about 40%, the [currency] has lost 98% of its value, inflation is at triple-digits, and the central bank has lost two thirds of its foreign currency reserves,” the International Monetary Fund wrote earlier this year.
In 2021, the government lifted foreign exchange subsidies, which left more than 70% of Lebanon’s 5.3 million people with no access to critical medications, a report by the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies stated in February, while more than half are without any form of healthcare coverage.
“All of these challenges have of course affected the sector’s preparedness [for war] compared to 2006,” Abiad said, adding that the ministry is closely working with “all entities in the health sector to maximise on available resources in case of war”.
The Lebanese government has said it is preparing an emergency plan to respond to the needs of people displaced by the ongoing clashes along the southern border, but details have yet to be announced.
Hezbollah reportedly has its own emergency plan in place to provide shelter for the displaced in case of a broader conflict and to ensure evacuation from the south to areas considered safer, such as Beirut, the Beqaa Valley, and the north. The New Humanitarian could not confirm any details of this plan.
The World Health Organization says it is providing the Lebanese Health Ministry with vital medical support in anticipation of any health crisis. Two WHO shipments have already arrived from Dubai, including medicine and surgical equipment to cover the needs of 800 to 1,000 patients. The ministry will be designating a number of hospitals to receive the supplies.
Civil society and NGOs scramble efforts
International and local humanitarian agencies and civil society groups have been mobilising to provide relief aid and shelter for those already displaced, while making preparations for possibly worse to come.
The local branch of Caritas Internationalis, a global network of 160 Catholic relief and development agencies, has launched a campaign to collect food items for displaced families and for those who have remained in the south. “The campaign is part of Caritas’ emergency response plan, which also includes securing shelter and medical support,” Peter Mahfouz, head of the group’s emergencies department, told The New Humanitarian.
“Three schools in the city were turned into shelter facilities hosting 900 refugees, while the rest of the displaced are staying with friends and relatives across the district’s villages.”
According to press reports, Red Cross centres across Lebanon are fully prepared for a potential war, with a pre-emptive plan in place as part of a national emergency response strategy. But attempts by The New Humanitarian to directly contact Lebanese Red Cross representatives to find out some specifics were unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, dozens of activists, volunteers, and members of established local civil society groups have come together to help find vacant apartments across Lebanon to shelter the newly displaced. This nameless civil society network first joined forces in 2019 to provide relief aid during massive wildfires in Lebanon, and has continued to provide humanitarian support in emergencies ever since.
Mariam Bilal, an environmental and political activist who works for the group between Beirut and the southern coastal city of Tyre, said the network has drafted an emergency response plan and created an ever-expanding WhatsApp group to mobilise support.
“We began with individual efforts, such as contacting those with vacant properties willing to accommodate financially disadvantaged displaced families,” she told The New Humanitarian.
The group is coordinating its efforts with a union of local municipalities in Tyre, the capital of Tyre district, where an estimated 6,621 registered refugees are seeking shelter, according to the vice-president of the union, Hassan Hammoud.
“Three schools [in the city] were turned into shelter facilities hosting 900 refugees, while the rest of the displaced are staying with friends and relatives across the district’s villages,” Hammoud told The New Humanitarian.
Bilal said the network has so far provided 30 displaced families in Tyre with basic necessities. “We have also facilitated the rent of apartments for two families at reasonable prices and aided the evacuation of three families who sought refuge with their relatives in Beirut,” she added.
Additionally, the group has provided some essentials for children and women evacuees, including 150 boxes of milk, 300 diaper bags, and sanitary pads.
Scepticism and trauma
The failure of successive governments to address Lebanon’s political, economic, and social woes has led to a deep sense of scepticism on the part of many Lebanese and a feeling they have been left to fend for themselves.
Driven by a sense of panic and déjà-vu – ever since the first week of the border skirmishes – many people haven’t been waiting to hear the government’s plans and have been packing and setting aside emergency bags with important documents, valuables, and other essentials.
“I am ashamed of showing panic at the sounds of Israeli military aircraft and shelling that we hear daily. But I am really living in constant worry, and the thought of a war terrifies me.”
“Everything that our government says about protecting us makes me laugh,” said Hussein Yaghi, a father of three from the town of Younine in the northern Beqaa Valley. “[This government] is not trustworthy, and the citizens of Lebanon have no say in a war or peace decision.”
“Now is not the time to enter a war. We, here in the Beqaa areas, are expecting a harsh winter, and most residents have not been able to prepare for it or secure the most basic means of heating. How can we be ready for war?” 35-year-old Yaghi told The New Humanitarian.
“All we have as means to protect ourselves is to pray that the next missile does not fall on the heads of our children.”
Majida, a 31-year-old teacher in the southern coastal city of Tyre, lost her father in the 2006 war, which flattened much of the south. Today, she’s the sole caretaker of her elderly and incapacitated mother.
“I am ashamed of showing panic at the sounds of Israeli military aircraft and shelling that we hear daily. But I am really living in constant worry, and the thought of a war terrifies me,” Majida told The New Humanitarian, giving only her first name due to security concerns.
“We have no place else to go. I don’t know what to do. My mother cannot move, and I do not want to add to her suffering by taking her out of the house,” she said. “We’re experiencing slow death every single day.”
This feature has been produced in collaboration with Egab. Edited by Eric Reidy.
