Nearly 700,000 displaced by Israeli onslaught on Lebanon
• Lebanese parliament postpones legislative elections for two years
• Lebanese president says Hezbollah risks state collapse, suggests full truce, direct talks
BEIRUT: The Israeli onslaught in Lebanon has displaced nearly 700,000 people, with reports of children among the casualties, as the conflict with the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah enters its second week, a UN agency said on Monday.
“Mass displacement across Lebanon has forced nearly 700,000 people including around 200,000 children from their homes, adding to the tens of thousands already uprooted from previous escalations,” UNICEF Regional Director Edouard Beigbeder said.
“Children are being killed and injured at a horrifying rate, families are fleeing their homes in fear, and thousands of children are now sleeping in cold and overcrowded shelters.”
Lebanon, a country of 6 million, has turned its largest sports venue, the Camille Chamoun Stadium in Beirut, into a displacement center. Beirut has registered 517,000 displaced people. On Monday, families sifted through boxes of donated clothes to help them bear the cold weather.
The devastating war was unleashed upon Lebanon after Hezbollah launched a retaliatory strikes to avenge the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader. The subsequent Israeli offensive have killed at least 394 people, including 83 children and 42 women.
The Israeli military ordered people out of Beirut’s southern suburbs, south Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley.
Israeli airstrikes sent smoke billowing from the southern suburbs Monday, hitting branches of the Hezbollah-run financial institution Al-Qard Al-Hassan and killing one person.
The Israeli military announced a “targeted and limited raid” in southern Lebanon to locate Hezbollah members and infrastructure, sending more troops to establish forward defensive positions. While Lebanese families suffer, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz referred to the mass evacuations as an opportunity “to make this area even safer.”
The Israeli military announced on Sunday that two soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for attacks against Israeli troops and a rocket salvo on the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona.
In south Lebanon, an Israeli tank strike killed a parish priest, Father Pierre al-Rai, and strikes on the Islamic Health Committee killed two paramedics.
Despite the bombing, Lebanon’s parliament met Monday and postponed legislative elections by two years due to the conflict. The polls were initially scheduled for May.
“Parliament approved the extension of its term for two years,” Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said in a statement.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun accused Hezbollah of working toward the “collapse” of the state. To stop the war, Aoun proposed establishing a full truce, providing logistical support to disarm Hezbollah, and entering direct negotiations with Israel under international auspices.
A Hezbollah official said the launch of missiles towards Israel was retaliation for the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Senior Hezbollah official Mohammed Raad said in an address that the group would defend its existence, “no matter the price”.
Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2026