Middle East war: nearly 500 die in Lebanon, 700,000 displaced by attack on Hezbollah
As the death toll rises by 100 a day, the Lebanese president proposes a truce with Israel, saying Hezbollah is pushing Lebanon into ‘chaos’
Israeli strikes and mass evacuation orders have seen nearly 700,000 people flee their homes in Lebanon in just over a week, with more than 100,000 fleeing in 24 hours, the UN said on Tuesday.
“Lives have been upended on a massive scale,” said Karolina Lindholm Billing, the representative in Lebanon of UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency.
In just over a week since the new escalation in Lebanon, Israeli air strikes and evacuation warnings to residents of dozens of villages “forced families across Lebanon to flee within minutes”, she told reporters.
She pointed out that “more than 667,000 people in Lebanon have now registered on the (Lebanese) government’s online platform as displaced”.
“This is an increase of 100,000 in just one day,” Lindholm Billing said, stressing that this is “a faster pace of displacement compared to 2024”, during Israel’s last war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Lebanon has been pulled deep into the war in the Middle East since Iran-backed Hezbollah opened fire to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, igniting an Israeli offensive which has killed nearly 500 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities, with the death toll rising by around 100 a day.