BEIRUT<\/em> \u2014\u00a0It is morning<\/span> outside Mohammed Al-Amin Mosque in downtown Beirut, and beneath the gigantic crescent moon statue, a woman in a white hijab and dirtied floral dress is calling for her children.<\/p>\n She screams out the name of one of them, Mohammed, when he almost wanders into the busy street.<\/p>\n Fatima, 45, fled the southern suburb of Bourj al-Barajneh with her family on March 2 when Israel bombarded the community as part of the broadening regional war.<\/p>\n She is a mother of two young boys and an older daughter who are sitting cross-legged around her on cardboard boxes. Thick comforters, a jug of water, and a half-eaten bag of Lebanese bread lean on the statue behind them.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s not the first time they have been displaced. The family is originally from Syria but escaped the civil war for the relative peace of Bourj al-Barajneh. Fatima\u2019s mother, Warde, 70, is there in her wheelchair; she sheltered in the exact same spot under the gigantic crescent moon statue in 2024 when Israel last struck their neighborhood<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n This time, they abandoned their home when the explosions brought her sons to tears. \u201cChildren are not like adults; there is fear and there is terror,\u201d she says. \u201cSo we left Bourj al-Barajneh. Yesterday we slept near this statue.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur children have been hungry since yesterday. I mean there\u2019s no food, no drink,\u201d she explains. \u201cAnd yesterday night the children were freezing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cChildren are not like adults; there is fear and there is terror.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Authorities in Beirut have done nothing to help them, Fatima says. They are among a wide swath of the Lebanese populace that has been uprooted and one of tens of families who have found shelter near the gigantic crescent moon statue. A few men brought them blankets when they saw that the family was cold. The problem is that they have nowhere to go now. \u201cNow we\u2019re afraid to go back. They\u2019re saying there\u2019s bombing. So, we\u2019re forced to be sitting here on the ground. What can we do? There\u2019s no solution. There\u2019s nothing,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n The next day, they are gone.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s wave of attacks on Lebanon are the deadliest conflict in the country since the 1975\u20131990 civil war. According to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 1,000 people<\/a>, 118 of them children, and displaced 1 million others. Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah but has consistently struck residential buildings in the south and east of the country, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and, recently, parts of central Beirut as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nowhere seems safe, especially for those whose apartments are in evacuation zones that encompass nearly 600 square miles, according to the United Nations<\/a>. As of mid-March, as many as 1 in 5 people in\u00a0Lebanon have been displaced by Israeli military operations.\u00a0The Intercept walked the streets of Beirut to learn their stories.<\/p>\n Across the street from the statue where Fatima\u2019s family sheltered, two teenage boys lay on a thin mattress pushed up against a wall covered with purple and yellow graffiti. One is awake and scrolling his phone with one hand behind his head. Behind him, his brother sleeps.\u00a0<\/p>\n Karim is 16, with dark brown hair and an inviting face. A few days ago, he was in Dahieh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, trying to pick up odd jobs to make money. He lived with his family in an apartment and shared a room with his brother.\u00a0<\/p>\n On February 28, the night the U.S. and Israel killed Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Karim heard \u201cproblems would soon be coming to Lebanon.\u201d He wasn\u2019t convinced at first. When Israel started hitting the southern suburbs, Karim narrowly avoided an air attack as his parents and brother tried to escape by car on the street known as Airport Road, which connects downtown Beirut to the Rafic Hariri International Airport. \u201cThey were striking in front of us, cutting off the road.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf we find a house, we\u2019ll go, and if we find a school, we\u2019ll go. And if we don\u2019t find anything, we\u2019ll stay here.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n When they made it to downtown Beirut, his family tried to find a place to stay in schools that were being converted into makeshift shelters, but they were mostly full. \u201cMy mom has a mental health condition,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe schools are overcrowded, and it bothers her too much.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s why he\u2019s sleeping on the street and using cafes to charge his phone. Karim runs into dukkan<\/em>, or corner stores, for food, water, or whatever else he needs.<\/p>\n He wants to return to his house, but the strikes have only gotten worse in Dahieh since they arrived. \u201cWe have to be patient. What can we do? If we find a house we\u2019ll go, and if we find a school we\u2019ll go. And if we don\u2019t find anything we\u2019ll stay here. We have to have patience,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, everything is exhausting. I am just so tired.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to<\/span> grasp the scale of displacement inside Lebanon. Already, according to the U.N., 667,831 people have registered themselves as displaced with Lebanon\u2019s government. Lebanon\u2019s National Disaster Risk Management Unit reports that \u201c119,700 displaced individuals [are] currently accommodated in 567 collective shelters.\u201d However, reports suggest that more than 1 million people \u2014 of a population of just about five and a half million \u2014 are displaced, including many who have not yet registered. According to Al Jazeera<\/a>, about 99,000 homes were already damaged or destroyed in the previous 14 months before this escalation started.<\/p>\n The Lebanese government, with the U.N. and local NGOs, says it is responding to the emergency by opening public schools, the city\u2019s stadiums, and universities as temporary shelters. With support from the U.N. Development Programme, they also created a disaster management unit to coordinate aid, such as essential supplies and cash transfers, and direct people to safer regions like the North and Bekaa.\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite these efforts, the scale of displacement has far exceeded the government\u2019s capacity to provide aid. Every one of the 36 displaced people in Beirut who spoke with The Intercept said the response has been inadequate.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere is the government? What are they doing?\u201d one humanitarian aid worker asks frustratedly.\u00a0<\/p>\n The man who raises this question over and over again is Mohammed, who shares his frustration while sitting on his motorcycle and smoking a cigarette in front of Ras Beirut\u2019s Public Secondary School, which has been converted into a shelter. He describes himself as part of the \u201cresistance against Israel,\u201d and as \u201ca son of Ras Beirut,\u201d known in the capital city as an upper-scale and religiously mixed neighborhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI am here to help the displaced people in that school behind me,\u201d he points.\u00a0<\/p>\n He doesn\u2019t think the Lebanese government is doing enough for its displaced citizens. \u201cChildren, boys, women, girls, are just sitting in the street with no one to feed them, no medicine at all, so we are trying, as the sons of this area, to serve them best we can.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Mohammed says that there are around 450 displaced people in the school with few resources. \u201cThey have no mattresses or pillows to put their heads on right now,\u201d he begins to speak louder and get more agitated. \u201cInside the school, women and children are sleeping on the floor barefoot covering themselves with their clothes instead of blankets,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Throughout March, schools in Lebanon have faced a near-total disruption<\/a> due to the sharp escalation in conflict. Since October 2023, Lebanon\u2019s schools have faced repeated widespread interruption<\/a>.<\/p>\n The atmosphere inside the school is tense as families bunch together in classrooms trying to find room.\u00a0One couple has set up a nargileh<\/em>, and the woman, who is in a black hijab, takes a long, deep pull from the hose and lets out a plume of smoke. \u201cNo pictures here,\u201d one of the gentlemen running the displacement shelter tells a European journalist with a camera around her neck. \u201cIt is a very sensitive time for all of these people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The facade of the school has one blue balcony on the upper left-hand side that overlooks Hamra in Ras Beirut. On it, a pair of red children\u2019s pajama pants, along with several other pieces of clothing, are hung out to dry. \u201cThese are the children of the southern suburbs, and where are they? They are on the streets,\u201d Mohammed says.<\/p>\n Hundreds of tents<\/span> have sprung up along the highway that passes Horsh Beirut, a park that butts up against the southern suburbs of the city. Yara Sayegh has taken it upon herself to help their inhabitants.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sayegh runs an organization called Truth Be Told, which usually focuses on transitional justice and human rights<\/a> in Lebanon. Now it is serving as an emergency response initiative, cooking and distributing meals and medicine to families in tents across the area. She has experience after responding the same way in during a period of intense Israeli strikes<\/a> in 2024.<\/p>\n Recently, she decided to build a makeshift kitchen at Riwaq Cafe near Mar Mikhael in Beirut. \u201cI decided, given how much transparency is needed and the importance and the attention to detail, and the amount of corruption I have witnessed during crises, I would just open up my own [kitchen].\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Every day, volunteers show up to the cafe around 10 a.m. to help cook and pack meals for those fasting in Horsh Beirut. Her chef, Omar Khaled, directs volunteers on how to dice onions, squeeze lemons, and cook mujadara<\/em>. He counts and recounts the boxed meals before they go out to the houseless people on the streets. Sayegh passes out as many as 1,000 meals a day in the park and surrounding areas.<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever I do right now, whatever a lot of us are doing, isn\u2019t enough,\u201d Sayegh says \u201cThere are too many families who are displaced.\u201d<\/p>\n On a rainy night in mid-March, Sayegh drives the meals to Horsh Beirut. Along the perimeter of the park, tents lining the streets are sopping wet. Tarps hang over four or five of them at a time. As she backs up her car, a line forms of people who need her help.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIs my medicine ready?\u201d one woman calls out.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNo, ma\u2019am not yet, but inshallah<\/em> I will try to bring it to you tomorrow,\u201d Sayegh responds as she jots down another young woman\u2019s information onto an Excel spreadsheet on her laptop.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI am committed to them, there aren\u2019t enough people helping, and they have nowhere to go,\u201d Sayegh says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n Israel\u2019s attacks on<\/span> Lebanon extend far beyond Beirut and its suburbs. The most devastating strikes have been across the south of the country.<\/p>\n Evacuation orders took effect both south and north of the Litani River, a crucial and agriculturally rich landscape powered by the river itself, in the last week. But problems for southerners started much before that.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the height of its war on Gaza in 2024, Israel began a series of strikes in southern Lebanon, aimed at what it said were militant groups, including Hezbollah, that had been launching retaliatory salvos across the border<\/a>. This included a campaign of deadly Israeli ground raids in the border region and the expansion of what it says is a \u201cbuffer zone.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon<\/a>, between November 2024 and the end of 2025, Israeli forces have committed over 10,000 air and ground violations of a November 2024 ceasefire<\/a> agreement. This included daily airstrikes and ground incursions that killed hundreds in Lebanon, including civilians. Israel never withdrew troops from southern Lebanon and has pushed further into the country as its right wing parties call to settle Lebanon<\/a> and make the Litani River Israel\u2019s northern border.<\/p>\n Buildings in that area have been leveled to the ground, and the Israeli military has paved roads over Lebanese homes, making sure displaced people can never return. The reality on the ground is \u201cundeniable erasure\u201d says Hanan, a queer Lebanese American art history student at the American University of Beirut. She is among those dealing directly with Israel\u2019s aggression in southern Lebanon.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hanan grew up in Arizona about 30 minutes from the Mexican border.\u00a0She came to Lebanon in August to pursue a master\u2019s degree in art history and curation. Ever since Israel\u2019s\u00a0so-called ceasefire<\/a> with Hamas, she felt a pull to Lebanon and her family there. She was drawn by bucolic memories of past visits.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI romanticize the shit out of that time now,\u201d she says. \u201cWe literally ate mulberries off the trees on the mosque grounds and chopped vegetables all morning listening to Arabic music.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Last week, her family\u2019s house in Chehabiye, near the southern border, was destroyed. Hanan is now housing 12 relatives in her two-bedroom apartment in Beirut\u2019s Achrafieh neighborhood, an upper-class Francophile, predominantly Christian community.<\/p>\n \u201cSome were more prepared than others when they came. They all mostly left in a hurry,\u201d she explains. Because of the chaos and the traffic, it took her family two days to get to her apartment in Beirut. On the journey, they slept in their cars.\u00a0<\/p>\n They had jobs at shoe stores and grocery stores, Hanan says. Kids were just beginning school. One relative had finally purchased a motorcycle after saving his money; it was destroyed in the strikes. \u201cAll of their lives have become completely upended,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n She thinks her relatives\u2019 building was targeted because a Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Qard Al-Hassan bank occupied the first floor. Founded in 1982, Al-Qard Al-Hassan operates more than 30 branches across Lebanon and is registered as an NGO with the Lebanese Ministry of Interior. But it is not licensed by Banque du Libam, the central bank of Lebanon, to operate as a bank. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned<\/a> Al-Qard Al-Hassan in 2007, stating Hezbollah uses it as a cover to manage financial activities and access the international financial system. This month, the Israeli military conducted a systematic campaign of airstrikes against numerous branches across Lebanon, identifying them as legitimate military targets<\/a> because they fund Hezbollah\u2019s military activities.<\/p>\n Even in Beirut, Hanan\u2019s family is treated with suspicion. Soon after their arrival, a neighbor threatened to inform authorities that 12 relatives were crammed into Hanan\u2019s two-bedroom apartment.<\/p>\n \u201cMy neighbors are afraid we are targets for Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cIt is just because they are southern and could be supporters of Hezbollah, and so my neighbors are afraid we are targets for Israel,\u201d Hanan explains. \u201cWhat they don\u2019t understand is that the people of the south are helping each other, even when others leave them hanging.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The tensions got worse on March 13, when Israeli aircraft dropped thousands of leaflets over several neighborhoods in Beirut. They called on the Lebanese citizens to \u201cdisarm Hezbollah\u201d and said \u201cLebanon is your decision, not someone else\u2019s.\u201d Another flier, designed to look like a newspaper, warned that the current situation in Lebanon would turn into something similar to Gaza. The leaflets asked Lebanese people to inform Israel of Hezbollah\u2019s whereabouts using a QR code.\u00a0<\/p>\n The point, many believe, is to stoke civil tension and sectarian fractures that will destabilize the country. Sayegh, for instance, says her family and friends don\u2019t support her humanitarian aid work. She comes from a Christian background and is often criticized for helping supporters of Hezbollah. \u201cWe are one people and that is the only way forward, and that is why I help. I believe in one Lebanon for all,\u201d\u00a0Sayegh says.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
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