Lebanon is facing one of the largest waves of displacement in its modern history, with more than 816,000 people, almost a third of them children, registered as displaced since Israeli attacks intensified last week, according to figures cited by the United Nations (UN).
More than 125,000 of those uprooted are now sheltering in 589 collective centres across the country, many of them converted public schools.
The escalation follows the collapse of a tenuous ceasefire that had largely held since November 2024, after Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah launched missiles and drones into Israel on 2 March to avenge the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader.
Israeli strikes have since expanded across the country, including rare attacks in central Beirut beyond the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs that had been the main targets earlier in the conflict.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has now warned Israel could seize Lebanese territory if the government fails to prevent Hezbollah from launching attacks across the border, as it prepares to “expand IDF activity”.
“We will take the territory and do it ourselves” he said after a security assessment on Thursday.
But the UN said rapidly escalating violence is fuelling an already entrenched humanitarian crisis, prompting the Security Council to convene on Wednesday.
There, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric warned the region was “being pushed to the breaking point”.
“The region is home to some of the largest numbers of people in need of humanitarian assistance globally,” he said.
“The recent escalation risks deepening civilian suffering and causing further damage to already fragile civilian infrastructure.”
Where are the displaced going?
Mass displacement has become the defining feature of the conflict in Lebanon, the UN has said, as Israeli evacuation orders continue to sprawl across the entire south of the country.
The IDF issued a new evacuation order on Thursday, expanding a previously instated order below the Litani River, all the way north to the Zahrani River, in addition to those in place in Beirut’s southern suburbs and parts of the Bekaa Valley.
By 9 March, the Lebanese Ministry of Social Affairs had documented more than 667,000 people displaced, including over 119,000 sheltering in more than 567 collective centres, but figures cited by the United Nations show the total has surged to more than 816,000 in the days since.
UN aid chief Tom Fletcher told the Security Council on Wednesday the scale of the crisis marked a “moment of grave peril”, echoing earlier warnings from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres about the dangers of a sprawling regional conflict.
“As a result of the region’s latest war and following months of violence, we’ve watched the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon intensify with alarming speed,” he said.
The crisis is also reversing a decade-long migration pattern.
For years Lebanon served as a refuge for Syrians fleeing their own civil war.
Now, many are returning in the opposite direction.
Since 28 February, more than 80,000 Syrians have crossed back into Syria through land crossings, with 43 per cent of them children, according to UN figures.
Offers of aid to Lebanon
Foreign governments and humanitarian agencies are attempting to scale up emergency assistance as the displacement crisis intensifies.
France has pledged a large shipment of relief supplies for civilians affected by the fighting.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Paris had decided to significantly expand its immediate aid contribution.
“What we have decided is to triple the volume of aid that will arrive this week,” Barrot said in an interview with French broadcaster TF1.
“This aid will reach … 60 [metric] tons of humanitarian aid for the Lebanese, including sanitation kits, hygiene kits, mattresses, lamps, and also a mobile medical post.”
Canada has also committed significant humanitarian funding. Foreign Minister Anita Anand announced more than $CAD37.7 million ($39 million) in support for food assistance, shelter, medical services and clean water.
SBS News asked the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade whether Australia will, or is considering, contributing aid to Lebanon, but did not receive a response before deadline.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, activated its emergency response in Lebanon on 4 March, opening emergency shelters in Saida and in the Nahr el-Bared camp in northern Lebanon.
Aid agencies have warned that disrupted health services, damaged infrastructure and rising food insecurity are rapidly increasing humanitarian needs across the country.
The civilian toll
The current escalation began earlier this month when Hezbollah launched missiles and drones into Israel for the first time in more than a year.
The Iran-backed militant group said it was responding to the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US–Israeli strikes two days earlier.
The exchange effectively shattered a fragile November 2024 ceasefire that had ended the last Israel–Hezbollah war just 15 months earlier.
Since then, Israeli strikes have spread well beyond Hezbollah-controlled suburbs of Beirut, targeting locations across Lebanon including central areas of the capital.
A building in Beirut’s Bashoura district near the Lebanese government headquarters was struck on Thursday in a rare attack on the downtown area.
Another strike near the Lebanese University campus in Hadath killed two academics on the same day, according to Lebanese officials.
Earlier this week, the International Committee of the Red Cross said one of its volunteers, Youssef Assaf, was killed while evacuating wounded civilians after an airstrike in southern Lebanon, while three paramedics were injured in related incidents despite their ambulances being clearly marked with the Red Cross emblem.
Lebanese authorities say at least 634 people have been killed and 1,586 wounded since the escalation began.
The UN has warned civilians on both sides of the Blue Line — the boundary dividing Lebanon from Israel and the Golan Heights — are paying the highest price.
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