GENEVA: 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 leaving 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 in Geneva.

She said “more than 667,000 people in Lebanon have now registered on the (Lebanese) government’s online platform as displaced”.

Fresh Israeli strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs

“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’s disaster management unit said the total number of people who registered their names on a website affiliated with the social affairs ministry reached 759,300, including 122,600 people staying in government shelters.

Lindholm Billing said that around 120,000 of those displaced in Lebanon were sheltering in government-designated collective sites, while many others were staying with relatives or friends or searching for accommodation.

“Many — often displaced for the second time since the hostilities in 2024 — fled in a rush with almost nothing, seeking safety in Beirut, Mount Lebanon, northern districts and parts of the Beqaa” in the east, she said.

The WHO, meanwhile warned that “overcrowding in shelters and host homes is heightening public health risks, including disease outbreaks, interruptions to routine health services, and disruption of care for chronic diseases, maternal health conditions and mental health disorders”.

Israeli strikes

Lebanese authorities have said Israel’s attacks since March 2 have killed at least 486 people and wounded more than 1,300 others. Fresh Israeli strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs and south Lebanon on Tuesday after the Israeli army warned people to evacuate.

“Israeli warplanes launched a raid… on the southern suburbs” of Beirut, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said.

AFPTV footage showed smoke rising from the area, where Hezbollah holds sway, while the Israeli military said it began “striking Hezbollah infrastructure” there.

In Lebanon’s south, the NNA said “the Israeli enemy launched a strike” in Abbassiyeh near Tyre city, after the Israeli military said it would strike a building there and in the coastal city of Sidon. It also reported strikes in other areas.

Israel, which kept up strikes despite a 2024 ceasefire, has since launched waves of attacks across Lebanon and sent ground troops into border areas.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2026