Horrific violence in Lebanon forced families to collective shelters where Oxfam and partners provided crucial aid.
For Siham, it’s difficult to escape the horror of the airstrike that drove her and her family from their home in southern Lebanon in late September. Despite finding safe shelter in northern Lebanon, she relives the terror at night. “Whenever I put my head on the pillow, I keep seeing flashes of those moments," she says.
"We started hearing the airstrikes getting closer and closer,” she remembers. When their home was hit, “I put my hands over my children's eyes in an effort to protect them.”
At that moment, Siham sustained injuries to her hand, neck, and eye. The attack, the injuries she sustained, and the uncertainty about the future for her daughters are on Siham’s mind while she tries to sleep at night. “Every time I want to go to sleep, all these problems come to my mind—the challenges we faced, what happened to us, and what is happening today,” she says. “I wonder what tomorrow will be.”
How Oxfam and partners are helping people in Lebanon
Beginning September 23, 2024, Israeli forces started a series of intensified offensives on Lebanon that led to a dramatic escalation in the conflict. The Lebanese government estimates that 1.5 million individuals were displaced, and it registered only 190,630 internally displaced people across 1,163 shelters, 991 of which were at full capacity when a conditional ceasefire was announced. At that time, more than 4,000 individuals were killed by Israeli forces, and 16,000 were injured. Among them were 222 health workers killed, and 330 wounded.
Between late September 2024 and the conditional ceasefire announced on November 27th, Oxfam and partners were providing displaced people with clean water, hygiene and menstrual hygiene management kits, food, cash assistance, and bedding kits (including mattresses, pillows, blankets) in Beirut, Mount Lebanon, Bekaa, and south and north Lebanon. Many of them were in communal shelters, including schools and other facilities, where Oxfam helped support repairs to sanitation systems. These humanitarian efforts reached 78,000 people affected by the conflict.
“People were forced to flee with little to no notice, often having to leave everything behind, to shelters that are inadequate or sharing crowded homes with few essential supplies,” says Oxfam in Lebanon Country Director, Bachir Ayoub, in a recent statement.
Following the announcement of the ceasefire, many of the people displaced by the conflict have started to leave collective shelters and return home – if they have homes to which they can return safely. Oxfam partners are assessing the needs of people leaving collective shelters and returning to their homes, or what is left of them. Many displaced people will continue to need food, shelter, bedding and warm clothes, as well as clean water and hygiene items.
“Hundreds of thousands of people have nowhere to return after Israel razed entire villages,” a statement by Oxfam read in late November. “A permanent agreement must be reached so that communities can begin to rebuild their lives.”