By Nohad Topalian | 2023-10-27

BEIRUT -- As the war triggered by Hamas gains steam and Hizbullah enters the fray, Lebanese families displaced from villages along the southern border with Israel told Al-Fassel they are angry about their situation and frightened to return.

"We are in a miserable situation here," said mother of three Janoub Sweid, 33, who fled with her children from Dhayra with only the clothes on their back.

They are sheltering at the Lebanese University's Faculty of Science in Tyre, where they are sharing half a room with eight other people, she told Al-Fassel.

"The 'resistance' launched a war from our town that we do not want," she said, in reference to Hizbullah, adding that there is "no medicine, water, electricity or money to keep my children away from the sounds of the bombing."

The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and the entry of Hizbullah and armed Palestinian groups into the fray on the border strip in southern Lebanon, sparked mass displacement from border towns and villages.

Among them was the town of Dhayra, only 300 meters away from the Blue Line, which armed groups were using to lob rockets at Israel.

According to a Monday (October 23) report by the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM), 19,646 people have been displaced in south Lebanon and other parts of the country by the Israel-Hamas conflict.

IOM regional spokesman Mohammedali Abunajela told AFP that the organization expects "the numbers to rise as the cross-border tensions continue."

He warned that "internal displacements may add additional stress to the resources of host communities" who are already suffering amid the country's ongoing economic crisis.

The health sector "faces a severe shortage of resources, such as medicines, doctors and nurses, who left the country because of the economic crisis," Abunajela said.

"Responding to the widespread displacement could overwhelm an already fragile health system," he added.

Exodus northwards towards Tyre

More than 4,000 have been displaced to the coastal city of Tyre, where they settled in three schools that are now overflowing.

Local authorities are working to help them and to open new shelters.

Others fled to Beirut, Batroun, Jbeil, Baalchmay and Bhamdoun in Mount Lebanon, and towns in the Chouf where they rented houses.

About 20,000 others fled to the Bekaa Valley, and settled in houses provided to them, according to a local source who preferred to remain anonymous.

Sweid said she found work in a restaurant in Tyre from 3pm till midnight that has helped her provide for her children and augment the assistance her family receives from various organizations.

Her children were forced to drop out of school, she said, and "are suffering from a psychological crisis and their behavior has changed."

"Why did they start a war in our town we had nothing to do with?" she lamented.

"They fired rockets at Israel from among our homes and opened a front above our heads," she added. "I feel overwhelming indignation, because our town is a peaceful Sunni town, and the resistance chose it to bombard Israel."

"The Lebanese can no longer tolerate any more senseless wars," she said. "Lebanon can no longer tolerate the economic collapse that befell it, the bombing of its port, and its disastrous repercussions on us."

Worsening of the crises in Lebanon

"There is nothing left in Dhayra except my father, who is 90 years old, and his cow," Aliya Sweid told Al-Fassel.

On October 11, Sweid and her three sons and their families were displaced to Beirut. They stayed with friends for a week and then found refuge at a school in Tyre.

She and her sons and their families share a classroom, she said, while her five daughters and their families were displaced to the nearby Faculty of Science.

"We left our homes, our income-generating lands that stretch as far as the eye can see and enough provisions to feed an army, to experience a displacement harsher than the displacement of the July 2006 war."

"We could not remain a burden on our friends in light of the economic crisis that has broken us all," she added. "We live in a cold room, in misery and in pain, and we're facing inhuman conditions.

"We wait for the three daily meals from appreciated organizations, but they do not satisfy the hunger of my grandchildren, and we have no money to buy food supplies," she said.

"There is no electricity, and the water provided by the organizations is not enough to wash our faces. So all we want is to go back to Dhayra, even if we will die there."

Badera Sweid, 27, also from Dhayra, initially fled with her two sons to a house provided to her by friends in the coastal town of Saadiyat in the Chouf.

They are now sharing a room in the Faculty of Science in Tyre with another family, as none of her relatives or friends is in a position to host them for long because of the country's economic crisis.

"The last thing I expected was to leave my home, stay for two days on a goat truck and expose my two children, a 2-year-old son and my 4-year-old daughter, to this humiliation and fear," she said.

"We sleep on the floor in a room with another family. There is no water available for personal hygiene, or electricity, and we wait for someone to provide us with meals."

Reda al-Sayed, 58, told Al-Fassel he was displaced from Beit Lif, near the border, to a school in Tyre, with four of his children.

"I feared for my children from the recurrent bombardment, so I fled with them to a school in Tyre," he said. "We live in a large room with relatives."

"We wait for the food and water provided to us to satisfy our hunger and thirst, and we go to my relatives' homes to shower," al-Sayed said.

"Our circumstances are very tragic, because our current displacement is different from our displacement during the July War, as we had money then, but today the financial collapse has bankrupted us and prices are exorbitantly high."