Beirut, Lebanon. Nearly 700,000 people have fled their homes in Lebanon over the past week, a U.N. agency said on Monday, as fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah entered a second week.
UNICEF reports mass displacement and impact on children
“Mass displacement across Lebanon has forced nearly 700,000 people – including around 200,000 children – from their homes, adding to the tens of thousands already uprooted from previous escalations,” Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF regional director, said in a statement.
“Children are being killed and injured at a horrifying rate, families are fleeing their homes in fear, and thousands of children are now sleeping in cold and overcrowded shelters,” he said.
Israeli strikes and Hezbollah missile fire
On Monday, Israeli strikes sent columns of smoke billowing from Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs and over the hilltops of southern Lebanon.
Security sources in Lebanon said Israeli airstrikes hit five branches of a financial institution run by Hezbollah, Al-Qard Al-Hassan, in the southern suburbs after Israel announced it would act against it.
Hezbollah fired missiles deep into Israel, setting off air raid sirens in central Israel and its commercial hub Tel Aviv, while interception blasts were heard as far as Jerusalem.
Evacuation orders and casualty figures
The Israeli military has in recent days ordered people out of Beirut’s southern suburbs, a swathe of south Lebanon, and parts of the eastern Bekaa Valley region, areas described as political and security strongholds of Shi’ite Muslim Hezbollah.
An Israeli military official said the evacuation orders were a legal obligation meant to keep civilians out of harm’s way before attacks on Hezbollah targets.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported on Sunday that the dead in Lebanon included at least 83 children and 42 women, and said the toll does not otherwise distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Conflict context and reported deaths
Lebanon has been drawn deeper into the conflict since Hezbollah opened fire to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, triggering an Israeli offensive that has killed nearly 500 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities, with the death toll rising by around 100 a day.
What steps, if any, should be taken to protect civilians and displaced families amid the escalating conflict?