War and The Displaced in Lebanon’s South

Five months of armed conflict along Lebanon’s southern border have resulted in hundreds of deaths and caused huge disruption to people’s lives, forcing more than 91,000 people from their homes and exacting a significant toll on their financial stability and psychological wellbeing.

Exchanges of fire across the border between Israeli forces and Hezbollah and other groups began on 8 October 2023 and show no signs of abating, while the conflict has recently spread to northeastern Lebanon with Israeli forces bombing the Baalbek-Hermel governorate.

Many of the displaced people left their homes with no possessions and struggle to get hold of basic necessities such as food and blankets. More than 60 families are living in an abandoned hotel repurposed into a shelter in Al-Merouaniye, some 60 kilometres from the border. One of its residents is Ali Hammoud, a barber and a father of three from Rab Al-Thalathine, who fights back tears as he recounts his family’s ordeal.

“My older son has had three mental crises,” he says. “We go to sleep, wake up, and repeat this every day. We are worried that our kids will develop mental problems from this situation. The same routine, day in and day out, is more burdensome to a child than an adult.”

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams are providing displaced people who fled the border region with psychological first aid. “We’re seeing an increase in depression and anxiety disorders,” says Felicitas Steinhoff, MSF mental health activity manager, who warns of the psychological toll of prolonged displacement.

“In terms of mental health, I think people are really good at coping with short-term stress, but what we see here is families who have been displaced from their homes for over five months now and who are living with a lot of uncertainty around when and even if they might be able to go back,” she says.

Our mobile medical team also provides people with care for chronic diseases and makes regular visits to a clinic in Nabatiyeh governorate, alongside the border.

The team provided 373 consultations since the start of 2024 in both locations. Manahel Rammel, who fled her home in the border town of Oudaisseh on 8 October, says that children and young people are suffering the most. “Young people aged between 18 and 20 sit around without any idea of what they want to do,” she says. “Their future is gone. The future of youth is gone.”

Manahel’s own daughter is fortunate to be studying in Beirut, but Manahel is unable to visit her there due to the high cost of transport. Like many people across Lebanon, Manahel already struggled to make ends meet before the current crisis, but being displaced has exacerbated her financial difficulties.

Lebanon is grappling with its fourth year of severe economic turmoil, which has seen two-thirds of its population pushed into poverty. The current violence has halted or severely impacted many people’s livelihoods, leaving them unable to meet even basic needs.

Ali initially sought refuge in Beirut, but after his savings were exhausted, he moved to the shelter in Al-Merouaniye. “We left our homes with nothing but the shirts on our backs,” says Ali.

“During the truce [a four-day truce in November 2023], we went back to pack some essentials and clothes just to warm ourselves… I had some savings, but they all ran out. I stayed in Beirut for two months and I spent all my money before eventually moving to this shelter,” he says.

While the walls of the abandoned hotel offer some safety and warmth to the families sheltering there, they – like thousands of other displaced people across Lebanon – are clearly in need of comprehensive and sustained assistance as they face an uncertain future.

“If I could rub a magic lantern right at this moment, I would wish to be back home in my village,” says Ali. “We have no solution, only God knows where we’re headed.”

Reliefweb

CrossFireArabia

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

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Amnesty Condemns Netanyahu’s Visit to Hungry

Responding to reports that Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has invited and plans to host Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Hungary on Wednesday, Erika Guevara-Rosas the head of Global Research, Advocacy and Policy of Amnesty International said:

“Prime Minister Netanyahu is an alleged war criminal, who is accused of using starvation as a method of warfare, intentionally attacking civilians and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.  As a member state of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Hungary must arrest him if he travels to the country and hand him over to the Court. Any trip he takes to an ICC member state that does not end in his arrest would embolden Israel to commit further crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

“Netanyahu’s reported visit should be seen as a cynical effort to undermine the ICC and its work, and is an insult to the victims of these crimes who are looking to the Court for justice. Hungary’s invitation shows contempt for international law and confirms that alleged war criminals wanted by the ICC are welcome on the streets of a European Union member state.

“Netanyahu’s visit to Hungary must not become a bellwether for the future of human rights in Europe. European and global leaders must end their shameful silence and inaction, and call on Hungary to arrest Netanyahu during a visit which would make a mockery of the suffering of Palestinian victims of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its war crimes in other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and its entrenched system of apartheid against all Palestinians whose rights it controls.

“Amnesty International calls on the ICC Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute all Israel’s crimes. Hungary should equally do so by applying universal jurisdiction principles. Powerful leaders, like Netanyahu, accused by the ICC of war crimes and crimes against humanity, must no longer enjoy the prospect of perpetual impunity.”

“The ICC was established to ensure accountability for victims of genocide and other crimes under international law, and so that crimes which shock the human conscience would “never again” be accompanied by impunity. In ‘bringing power to justice’, the ICC is now facing a global backlash from powerful leaders seeking to undermine the international rule of law and stamp out the prospect of accountability for the most powerful.”

Background

In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as al-Qassam brigades commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Since then, leaders from ICC member states France, Germany, Italy, Hungary and Poland have stated or implied that they would not arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he travelled to their respective countries. The United States has also enacted sanctions against the ICC Prosecutor, Karim Khan.

A cornerstone principle of the ICC’s founding Rome Statute is that all individuals subject to ICC arrest warrants must be arrested and surrendered to the Court without recourse to immunity when they are within the jurisdiction of ICC member states, including on their territory.

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Israel Violates Syria With 11 Air Raids

Israel will not leave Syria alone! Israeli raids, Wednesday evening, struck the Scientific Research Institute in the Barzeh neighborhood in Damascus according to Sana, the Syrian news agency.

https://twitter.com/warintel4u/status/1907509948881502435

Israeli warplanes went on to strike the Hama military base with more than 11 air raids, Sana pointed out. later reports show that the military airport was targeted 17 times.

The Israeli Channel 12 added that an additional target was the T4 military airport in rural Homs.

The Israeli raids, almost daily, started months ago on Syria and its capital, Damascus, and increased after 9 December 2024 when there was a change of regime in the country.

Residents in Damascus said they heard loud explosions after the intense air raids that targeted the scientific building in Barzeh.

But before that Israel has been conducting deadly air raids, literally mounting to thousands on Syria for years under the now ousted Baath regime of President Bashar Al Assad.

Israel then claimed it was targeting Hezbollah and Iranian bases but there were many deaths and injuries.

Israel occupied most of the Syrian Golan Heights after the 1967 Arab-Israel war, and took advantage of the fall of the regime and occupying the country’s buffer zone and declaring the collapse of the 1974 disengagement agreement between the two sides.

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