Lebanon displacement 'devastating', support insufficient, UN official says

The displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon is "devastating", a U.N. migration official has said, warning international support was falling short of the needs, amid intense Israeli bombing.

After a year of cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah, which launched attacks on Israel in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza, Israel last month escalated attacks on what it says are Hezbollah targets in Lebanon's south, east and south Beirut.

The violence has killed hundreds of people in Lebanon and displaced more than one million others, most of them since September 23, according to Lebanese authorities.

"With this wave of displacement, we see huge needs... the situation is devastating," said Othman Belbeisi, the International Organization for Migration's Middle East and North Africa director.

"Lebanon needs more support. What has been offered so far is minimal and does not match the needs," he told AFP on Thursday during a visit to Beirut.

The IOM has "verified and tracked" some 690,000 internally displaced people in Lebanon, Belbeisi said, noting about 400,000 others had reportedly fled the country, many of them for neighboring Syria.

Around a quarter of the displaced in Lebanon, or more than 185,00 people, are in official shelters such as schools, according to the IOM.

Around another a quarter have rented accommodation, while some 47 percent are living in "host settings", the IOM said.

- Aid appeal -

Many people are staying with relatives, while some with nowhere to go are sleeping on the streets.

"It's really sad to see this (displacement) again in Lebanon," Belbeisi said, in a country that endured a 1975-90 civil war and a monthlong conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

People have fled their homes "with nothing, out of fear, and now they have to rebuild everything once again," he added, as smoke rose from Israeli air strikes in the city's southern suburbs.

The U.N. has appealed for $426 million to address the humanitarian crisis in the country over the next three months, including $32 million for the IOM to assist some 400,000 people, Belbeisi said.

U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA said Friday the appeal was just 12 percent funded, with $51 million received.

Lebanon has been enduring a five-year economic crisis that has impoverished many and crippled government services.

"We hope that everybody will be able to scale up their capacity," Belbeisi said.

"We want this (displacement) to end as soon as possible," he added.

Hezbollah and Israel began trading cross-border fire after the Gaza war erupted, with the Lebanese group saying it is acting in support of Palestinian ally Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack triggered the conflict.

The violence has killed more than 2,100 people in Lebanon since then -- more than half of them in the past two and a half weeks, according to government figures.