Rabat – Casualties continue to grow on the 10th day since US-Israel first launched attacks on Iran, throwing the region into war. Following the strikes on Iran, fighting between Israel and Hezbollah recommenced.
Lebanon’s social affairs minister reports that 517,000 people have registered as displaced. The actual account is likely higher as the number only counts those who registered through a ministry-affiliated website. The UN reports nearly 700,000 people including 200,000 children displaced “adding to the tens of thousands already uprooted from previous escalations.”
While Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam banned Hezbollah’s military activity after the group struck Israeli military bases for the first time in more than a year in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, the armed group has continued attacks on Israeli bases daily.
Israel officially declared an end to the 2024 ceasefire, which they had violated more than 10,000 times according to United Nations peacekeepers.
Israel responded with air strikes across the south, east, and Beirut’s southern suburbs, with ground forces also pushing into southern Lebanon, seizing hilltops on the border. Some in Lebanon worry that Israel will not withdraw, with the current invasion signalling a return to Israel’s previous occupation from 1982 to 2000.
Analysts suggest efforts to separate Hezbollah from the people and reshape Lebanon through mass displacement.
Evacuation orders have been issued to over 100 villages.
Read also: Israel Threatens Potential Successor of Khamenei, Continues Attacks Iran and Lebanon
On March 5, Israel ordered residents of south Lebanon to relocate north of the Litani River. On the following day, residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs were also ordered to leave. The two regions are among the areas from which Hezbollah draws much of its support.
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezadel Smotrich threatened to treat the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital with the same force exerted in the genocide on Palestinians. In a video shared on Thursday, Smotrich said that the Dahiyeh would soon look “like Khan Younis,” a demolished city in southern Gaza.
Even if Israel does withdraw from Lebanon, ongoing displacement and destruction is already shaping significant long-term consequences for the country and its citizens.
With some of the Lebanese population in their third year of displacement and the country’s economy destroyed, a resurgence will take titanic efforts.
The Lebanese lira lost over 98% of its value between 2023 and 2024. As of 2025, 80% of the population was already living in poverty, lacking access to healthcare, electricity, and education.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health reported 394 deaths in Lebanon in a week, including 83 children, 43 women, and 9 rescue workers. Israeli authorities report 11 deaths.
As the war escalates, Israel has reported killing around 200 Hezbollah fighters since fighting resumed in March. The latter has not released its own number.
