(BEIRUT) — Nearly one quarter of the Lebanese population has been displaced by Israel’s military campaign there, the country’s caretaker prime minister said.
Najib Mikati said 1.2 million people — out of Lebanon’s total 2022 population of 5.49 million, according to United Nations data — have been forced from their homes by Israel’s air and ground attacks.
“We are trying to cope with these problems, but to tell you the truth, security-wise, the most important thing now is to arrange for them shelter, food and how we can manage these displaced peoples,” Mikati said during an online event Wednesday hosted by the American Task Force on Lebanon, a nongovernmental organization.
Mikati said that the number of displaced people is the largest in the nation’s history, which has been punctuated by civil war and conflict with neighboring nations.
To date, 867 centers have been opened to receive displaced persons in public schools, educational complexes, vocational institutes and universities, Lebanese authorities said, with more than 200,000 Syrians and more than 76,000 Lebanese also crossing the border into Syria.
Israel’s bombardment has been especially intense in the south of the country, where Israeli troops are now engaged in heavy fighting with Hezbollah units per Israel Defense Forces battlefield reports.
The IDF has issued evacuation notices for some 90 villages there, warning residents to evacuate north of the Awali River around 37 miles from the Israeli border.
Anyone using vehicles to cross from the north to the southern side of the Litani River — around 18 miles north of the Israeli border — is endangering their “personal safety,” IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee said.
Israel is demanding that Hezbollah withdraw its forces north of the Litani, as the militant group agreed to do as part of a 2006 United Nations Security Council resolution ending the last major cross-border conflict.
Airstrikes are also still pummeling Beirut, particularly the densely-populated southern suburb of Dahiya — known as a Hezbollah stronghold in the capital and described by author Hanin Ghaddar as “Hezbollahland.”
It was in a bunker under Dahiya that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed by Israeli strikes on Sept. 27. Israel used bunker-busting bombs in the assassination, an Israeli official familiar with the strike told ABC News.
The IDF said it is hitting Hezbollah “terrorist infrastructure” and “weapons manufacturing plants” in “precise” strikes in the capital. Meanwhile, Hezbollah units continue firing rockets and drones across the border into Israel.
The IDF has issued multiple evacuation orders for residents of Dahiya. Another series of massive strikes rocked the suburb overnight Thursday.
Many people are living on the street, in parks and sheltering under trees. Others sleep on the city’s beaches to avoid the attacks.
“Another sleepless night in Beirut,” the United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis, wrote on X. “Counting the blasts shaking the city. No warning sirens. Not knowing what’s next. Only that uncertainty lies ahead. Anxiety and fear are omnipresent.”
Lebanese health officials say more than 1,900 people have been killed across the country since Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began firing into Israel across the shared border.
More than 9,000 others have been wounded, officials said.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti, Ghazi Balkiz, Nasser Atta and Marcus Moore contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.