Almost 700,000 displaced, 84 children killed after Israeli strikes on Lebanon, UN agencies say
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
A displaced family sits inside their tent at a sports stadium in Beirut that was converted into a shelter.
PHOTO: AFP
Follow our live coverage here.
GENEVA – The humanitarian crisis in Lebanon has deepened amid the wider Middle East war, with 84 children killed and more than 667,000 people displaced, two UN agencies said on March 10, as lives are upended on a massive scale across the country.
Lebanon was dragged into the US-Israeli war on Iran when Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah launched rockets and drones into Israel, which has responded with heavy bombardment across the country.
A total of 486 people have been killed in the war so far and 1,313 injured, of which 259 are children, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
“This is only a seven-days conflict, and we are already seeing that almost 100 children that have lost their lives,” said Mr Abdinasir Abubakar, WHO representative in Lebanon.
“One reason why we have a high number of children is that most of the attacks that we see actually is, it’s urban centres, like in Beirut,” he said, adding that Israel’s air strikes, which it says target Hezbollah infrastructure, are putting civilian lives at risk.
The current rate of displacement in Lebanon is outpacing levels seen during the 2023-24 war between Hezbollah and Israel, the UN Refugee Agency said on March 10.
During that conflict, 886,000 people were internally displaced in Lebanon, while tens of thousands of Israelis were evacuated from northern towns near the Lebanese border.
Lebanon’s sharp rise in displacement this week stems from large-scale evacuation orders issued by the Israeli army for southern Lebanon and Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs, which the UN human rights chief said on March 6 raised serious concerns under international law.
The WHO warned that Lebanon’s hospitals and frontline responders were under “extraordinary strain” trying to manage the rising number of patients.
Five hospitals are now out of service, four partially damaged, and 43 primary healthcare centres are closed, mostly in the south, which has been largely evacuated, Mr Abubakar said.
“Many of the people fleeing were also fleeing back in 2024. We met many who then had their homes completely destroyed, family members killed and so on. So, this means that people are not waiting to see what will happen next. They leave immediately,” said Ms Karolina Lindholm Billing, UNHCR representative in Lebanon.
Some 120,000 people are staying in government-designated shelters, while others are still looking for somewhere to stay, the UNHCR said, citing government figures.
“Many others are staying with relatives or friends or still searching for accommodation, and we see cars lined along the street with people sleeping in them and also on the sidewalks,” Ms Billing said. AFP
