As Israel has escalated its campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon across a United Nations-drawn boundary between the two countries, more than a million people have fled their homes.
Some have nowhere to go in a country already devastated by economic crisis, a political impasse and largest number of refugees per capita and per square mile in the world.
“Lebanon has experienced every crisis imaginable over the past two decades and this is another one of those that we have to get through. We are nothing if not resilient,” Fadi Bejan said.
Bejan, the country representative for Pro Terra Sancta, a Catholic organisation that supports local communities and helps in humanitarian emergencies, spoke as the UN’s Security Council expressed “strong concern” 14 October after Israel had fired on and wounded UN peacekeepers in the south of the country.
“Whereas before the war our focus was on providing food and medication to those within a 10-kilometer radius of Beirut, we have had to cast our net wider,” he said.
“The priority for PTS is now on those who have fled their home whether they be from Dahieh, a Hezbollah stronghold (district of Beirut), or a border town in south Lebanon.”
Even before the recent crisis, it was estimated that more than half of the Lebanese population is living below the poverty line, “while a shocking nine out of ten Syrian refugees require humanitarian assistance to meet their basic needs,” said the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.
Currently, 1.2 million internally displaced people add to the 1.5 million Syrian refugees living in the country and some 11,238 refugees of other nationalities.
“At times of hardship we come together regardless of our faith. Amidst all the chaos that’s what I cling onto— the goodness of people in unimaginable circumstances,” Bejan said.
Rima Abi Karam, project manager for humanitarian projects in Lebanon of the Religious of Jesus and Mary, agreed.
“The Lebanese people have so much dignity that they don’t want to ask for help,” she said.
“I have lived in Lebanon for over 50 years and I’ve never witnessed displacement on this scale. We take it day by day and at the same time hope for some sort of miracle to end this misery.”