Citizens and permanent residents of Lebanon have fled the nation or have been internally displaced since the escalation of tensions between Israel and Hezbollah beginning in 2023, and especially during and following the September 2024 Lebanon strikes in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley. As of 25 September 2024, nearly 500,000 people were reported by Lebanese officials to have been displaced due to the strikes.
A day after Hamas launched its 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel, Hezbollah joined the conflict, citing support for the Palestinians, [1] [2] by firing on Shebaa Farms, [2] Safed, Nahariya, [3] and other Israeli military positions. [4] Since then, Hezbollah and Israel have been involved in cross-border military exchanges that have displaced entire communities in Israel and Lebanon, with significant damage to buildings and land along the border.
Beginning on 23 September 2024, Israel conducted about 1,500 attacks on Hezbollah positions in Lebanon, [5] in an operation codenamed Northern Arrows. [6] Targeted regions included southern Lebanon, the Beqaa Valley, and the suburbs of Beirut. [7] [8] According to Lebanon's Health Ministry, [9] these Israeli strikes have killed at least 700 people—including 50 children, 94 women, and 4 medics—and injured at least 1,835. [10] [11] [12] The strikes were the deadliest attack in Lebanon since the end of the 1975–1990 Lebanese Civil War. [13]
As a result of Israeli bombardments from 7 October 2023 to prior to the 23 September 2024 strikes, over 111,000 civilians in Lebanon were displaced during the course of the renewed conflict. [14] A report from Amnesty International released on 16 October 2023 stated that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) fired white phosphorus shells into Dhayra, hospitalizing nine civilians and setting fire to civilian homes, cars, and other belongings and thus forcing the displacement of civilians in the attack zones. [15] [16]
Hezbollah stopped its military operations briefly after the temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas put into effect on 24 November, which prompted the IDF to stop the shelling on targets in southern Lebanon. [17] As a result, many displaced civilians returned to their homes amid the calm. [18]
In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who had already been displaced since October 2023, 90,000 more were initially reported to have been displaced in the immediate aftermath of the 23 September strikes. [19] On that day, those fleeing south Lebanon were stuck in traffic as two-hour journeys turned into daylong journeys. [20] On 25 September, Lebanon's foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib said that nearly 500,000 people were displaced due to the strikes. [21]
Thousands of displaced Lebanese citizens took refuge in Beirut, especially in the Hamra neighborhood. The rapid and sudden influx of refugees into the city resulted in significant numbers of hotels and shelters being filled to occupancy, localized shortages in food supplies, and an "enormous gridlock of traffic" coming from south of Beirut. [22] Many displaced persons in Beirut and Sidon slept in parks, in cars, and along the beach due to most displacement shelters being fully occupied. [23]
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that hundreds of civilian cars and buses attempting to escape Lebanon across the Lebanon–Syria border were stalled in queues extending for several kilometers. In addition, it reported that many Lebanese civilians in large crowds that included women, children, infants, and those injured from Israeli attacks, reached the Syrian border on foot while carrying whatever they could. Once reaching the border, many of the displaced had to wait hours in order to receive essential aid due to the significant volume of refugees, with many having to wait outside at night in cold temperatures. Commissioner Filippo Grandi stated that many of the newly displaced were families who part of the 1.5 million Syrian refugees displaced from the Syrian civil war into Lebanon, only to be forcefully displaced again due to the severe bombardments. [24] [25]
Many of the Lebanese who reached Syria took shelter in rented houses and apartments, with some having paid rent well in advance in case of any sudden escalations. Many Lebanese escaped into Syria due to its proximity to the attacked Beqaa Valley, due to its crossing not requiring a visa for Lebanese citizens, and due to the relative cheapness of rent for property in Syria relative to in Lebanon. [25]
Many Syrian refugees in Lebanon who were displaced again by Israeli attacks were apprehensive of returning to Syria out of fears that they would be conscripted into the Syrian Army or arrested for real or accused actions in favor of opposition to President of Syria Bashar al-Assad. In response to this, Assad notified Syrian citizens that they would receive an amnesty for any possible infractions committed prior to 22 September 2024, which included those who dodged conscription. [25]
In November 2023, the Lebanon Humanitarian Fund implemented its reserve allocation of up to four million USD in support for its partners to help aid Lebanese civilians who were displaced or were trapped in conflict zones. [26]
In response to the 23 September 2024 strikes, two hundred ninety schools were converted into shelters. [27] Due to the Lebanese government being ill-equipped to provide supplies or staff, many non-governmental organizations, political-party affiliated volunteers, and individual donors collaborated in attempting to meet the needs of the displaced. [19] The UNHCR stated that it would scale up support based on the growing amount of displaced people in need, and would work with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to provide food, water, essential supplies, and guidance to refugees at border crossings into Syria. [24] Dina Darwiche, a UNHCR staff member, was killed along with one of her children in an Israeli strike in Beqaa. [28] [23]
Hassan Nasrallah was a Lebanese cleric and politician who served as the secretary-general of Hezbollah, a Shia Islamist political party and militia, from 1992 until his assassination in 2024.
The Israeli–Lebanese conflict, or the South Lebanon conflict, is a long-running conflict involving Israel, Lebanon-based paramilitary groups, and sometimes Syria. The conflict peaked during the Lebanese Civil War. In response to Palestinian attacks from Lebanon, Israel invaded the country in 1978 and again in 1982. After this it occupied southern Lebanon until 2000, while fighting a guerrilla conflict against Shia paramilitaries. After Israel's withdrawal, Hezbollah attacks sparked the 2006 Lebanon War. A new period of conflict began in 2023, leading to the 2024 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Dahieh is a predominantly Shia Muslim suburb in the south of Beirut, in the Baabda District of Lebanon. It has a minority of Sunni Muslims, Christians, and a Palestinian refugee camp with 20,000 inhabitants. It is a residential and commercial area with malls, stores and souks, and comprises several towns and municipalities, including Ghobeiry, Haret Hreik, Bourj el-Barajneh, Ouzai, and Hay El-Saloum. It is north of Rafic Hariri International Airport, and the M51 freeway that links Beirut to the airport passes through it.
Events in the year 2023 in Lebanon.
An armed conflict between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups has been taking place in the Gaza Strip and Israel since 7 October 2023. It is the fifth war of the Gaza–Israel conflict since 2008, and the most significant military engagement in the region since the Yom Kippur War in 1973. It is the deadliest war for Palestinians in the history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have exchanged fire along the Israel–Lebanon border and in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights since 8 October 2023. Israel has also carried out airstrikes against Hezbollah throughout Lebanon and in Syria. The conflict is part of the spillover of the Israel–Hamas war and is the largest escalation of the Hezbollah–Israel conflict since the 2006 Lebanon War.
Events of the year 2024 in Israel.
Events in the year 2024 in Lebanon.
Since the beginning of the Israel–Hezbollah conflict on 8 October 2023, the Israeli Defense Forces has killed six journalists and injured at least 15 others in multiple incidents near the Lebanon–Israel border and in Syria. Lebanese residents have also attacked journalists covering the war from Hezbollah controlled areas which injured multiple and one instance resulted in the death of a Lebanese civilian guide.
The Middle Eastern crisis is a series of conflicts and heightened instability in the Middle East which began with the 7 October attacks on Israel and the war that followed, leading to a major escalation of the existing tensions between Israel and Iran. This escalation has resulted in several proxy conflicts breaking out across the Middle East involving both sides.
In 2024, the Iran–Israel proxy conflict escalated to a series of direct confrontations between the two countries. On 1 April, Israel bombed an Iranian consulate complex in Damascus, Syria, killing multiple senior Iranian officials. In response, Iran and its Axis of Resistance allies seized the Israeli-linked ship MSC Aries and launched strikes inside Israel on 13 April. Israel then carried out retaliatory strikes in Iran and Syria on 19 April.
On 30 July 2024, Israel conducted an airstrike on an apartment building in Haret Hreik in the suburbs of the Lebanese capital of Beirut, killing Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, Iranian military adviser Milad Bedi, as well as five Lebanese civilians, including two children, and wounding 80 others.
On August 17, 2024, Israel attacked a warehouse in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, killing at least 11 people and injuring four others. All people killed in the attack were Syrian refugees.
On 17 and 18 September 2024, thousands of handheld pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkies intended for use by Hezbollah exploded simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria in an Israeli attack. The attack killed at least 42 people, including at least 12 civilians, and wounded more than 3,000. The incident was described as Hezbollah's biggest security breach since the start of the Israel–Hezbollah conflict in October 2023.
On 20 September 2024, Israel launched an air attack that leveled an apartment building in the Dahieh suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. The attack killed at least 45 people, including 16 Hezbollah militants, two of whom were commanders, identified as Ibrahim Aqil and Ahmed Wehbe. They were the second and third Hezbollah commanders assassinated by Israel in two months during the ongoing Israel–Hezbollah conflict, after the killing of Fuad Shukr.
On 23 September 2024, Israel began a series of airstrikes in Lebanon as part of the ongoing Israel–Hezbollah conflict with an operation it code-named Northern Arrows. Since then, Israel's attacks have killed over 800 people, injured more than 5,000, and displaced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians. The attacks are the deadliest in Lebanon since the end of the Lebanese Civil War, and began five days after Israel performed a deadly pager and walkie-talkie attack on devices intended for Hezbollah members, and three days after Israel performed an airstrike on an apartment complex in Beirut which killed Redwan Force commander Ibrahim Aqil as well as 54 others.
This timeline of the Israel–Hezbollah conflict covers the period from 17 September 2024, when Hezbollah pagers exploded throughout Lebanon and Syria to the present. Beginning 23 September, Israel begun mass airstrikes on Lebanon, on 27 September, they assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, and on 1 October, they invaded Lebanon.
On 27 September 2024, Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut. The strike took place while Hezbollah leaders were meeting at a headquarters located 60 feet (18 m) underground beneath residential buildings in Haret Hreik in the Dahieh suburb to the south of Beirut. Conducted by the Israeli Air Force using F-15I fighters, the operation involved dropping more than 80 bombs, including US-made 2,000-pound (910 kg) bunker buster bombs, destroying the underground headquarters as well as nearby buildings. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) codenamed the operation "New Order".
On 1 October 2024, Israel invaded Southern Lebanon in an escalation of the ongoing Israel–Hezbollah conflict, a spillover of the Israel–Hamas war. It followed a series of major attacks on Hezbollah in September that degraded its capabilities and devastated its leadership, beginning with the explosions of its communication devices. This was followed by a massive Israeli aerial bombing campaign throughout Lebanon, killing over 800 Lebanese people in one week. On 27 September, Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike.
The death toll from Israeli attacks across Lebanon since Monday has risen to 558, including 50 children and 94 women, according to Lebanon's Health Minister Firass Abiad. He added that at least 1,835 people were wounded in Israeli air raids that hit Beirut and southern Lebanon.
