Women’s displacement and suffering during the war on Lebanon

Nariman Chamaa, journalist and activist. President of the NGO Donia for Sustainable Development

Introduction

Since the renewed Israeli aggression on southern Lebanon in October 2023, thousands of families have been forcibly displaced towards safer areas, and then expanded in 2024 to become a comprehensive war that included many areas, including the capital Beirut.

During it, residential buildings, schools, hospitals, paramedics, places of worship, municipalities, markets and infrastructure were targeted using heavy and internationally prohibited weapons. This is a clear violation of the rules of war, international conventions and international humanitarian law, and amounts to war crimes.

10.150 attacks have been recorded since the beginning of the aggression until October 18, 2024 (the date of writing this article). According to the Government Emergency Committee, 2.367 martyrs and 11.106 wounded were killed.

Dangers and displacement
The number of displaced persons is estimated, according to Minister Abbas Hajj Hassan, to exceed 1.4 million displaced persons. Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women, tweeted on the X platform on October 8 that among the displaced are 530,000 women and girls, and 62,000 families headed by women.

Women and children are the most affected by wars and conflicts and are exposed to unique and complex challenges that do not only stem from displacement, but also from the life-threatening risks they have been exposed to. Many women have lost their lives as a result of the bombing of civilians, and many women have lost their husbands, relatives and sons. Many women are injured and may suffer permanent disabilities. The risks also extend to exposure to dust from internationally banned weapons, which the Lebanese Chemists Syndicate indicated in a statement that Israel used enriched uranium to bomb residential buildings in Beirut, which will leave far-reaching health and environmental effects.

To date, there are no reports from official sources that provide detailed information about the victims according to gender, age, region, etc., so we find the victims in official reports as numbers without descriptions or stories.

The impact of war on women
Among the major losses for women is the destruction of their homes and the pasture of their memories, and their being forced to live in unstable shelters, struggling to accept life in them, filled with fear of the future.

We met Amal (32 years old), a mother of two, in one of the shelters, crying after receiving the news that her home in the south had been bombed two days after she left it. She said: “This is the 13th house I have moved to. The war did not allow us to settle in a town. How can I build a new house when our financial circumstances are not up to scratch due to the economic crisis?”

Many women have lost their jobs and sources of income in the destroyed areas, including agricultural areas. Not only that, but many of them have lost their breadwinners and have become responsible for supporting their children or the elderly in the family. Men have also lost their jobs due to the war and are no longer able to provide for their families’ basic needs.

Emergency humanitarian response
Due to the state’s lack of preparedness for an emergency humanitarian response, many families have been forced to sleep on the streets, and citizens have hosted many families in their homes, while the largest number have taken refuge in shelters in public schools that have been opened in succession, and their number has reached 1076 centers (at the time of writing the article).

These centers lack basic humanitarian needs. The intervention of local associations and initiatives represents the backbone of relief work and absorbing the shocks resulting from the massive displacement of citizens and providing them with assistance, throughout Lebanon, despite the scarcity of resources. In a meeting with Mohammed Bakir, director of Akram Awida Technical Institute in Mina, northern Lebanon, which hosts 276 displaced persons (46 families), he said: “We face great challenges in receiving large numbers of displaced persons and we are working to secure three meals, but we need canned food and dry food, especially for children. We also find it difficult to secure fuel, drinking water, bathing water, and sleeping supplies such as mattresses, pillows, and blankets, especially since we are on the verge of winter and there are no heating or water heating facilities in the institute, which portends a humanitarian disaster that will be added to the disasters we are witnessing. He also stressed the need for psychological support for the displaced, especially for women and children who suffer from severe psychological trauma after surviving the raids and witnessing the horrors of destruction.”

During a tour of the shelters, we found some of them have become overcrowded to the point of receiving more than 15 to 20 people in one room, and they are often from the extended family such as the elderly, parents, grandchildren, aunts, and their children. Or you may find two strange families sharing a room separated by a curtain.

Women and girls suffer from a violation of their privacy, and it allows everyone present to participate in family problems that are exacerbated by unusual circumstances and psychological pressure. Also, the bathrooms in most shelters are far from the rooms or on other floors, which may expose them to harassment.

Women in similar circumstances of war, displacement, and worsening psychological and social conditions are exposed to increased risks of forms of gender-based violence, but domestic violence, sexual exploitation, and harassment remain unspoken violence in normal circumstances, so what about similar circumstances where protection is absent in the midst of chaos and legal mechanisms are weak.

The circumstances of Palestinian and Syrian women are no different from those of Lebanese women in the issue of displacement, although their displacement is complex, as Palestinian women are originally refugees and have been living in refugee conditions in camps since 1948 as a result of the Palestinian Nakba. The same applies to Syrian women since 2011 as a result of the war in Syria. Displaced families of non-Lebanese nationalities faced severe discrimination and voices rose demanding their return to their country, which prompted the Lebanese authorities to allocate special shelters for Syrians, while the majority of Palestinians were forced to seek refuge in Palestinian camps in the north despite the dangers they face. Amal Ghazlan, head of the Women’s and Girls’ Rights Department at the Najda Association, spoke about the conditions of displaced Palestinian women.

A Palestinian social worker working in the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon, said: “There are difficult cases that were encountered while working with women during the emergency, such as depression among pregnant women, and fear of harming the fetus after birth due to women blaming themselves, and there are cases of women thinking about suicide or self-harm and needing a psychiatrist. There are also women who have been divorced and are residing in shelters, and in general, during crises, women are in dire need of support and the presence of someone who listens to them in a very double way.” Ghazlan added, “We have also noticed cases of increasing concern among parents about the safety of children, as well as increased violence by parents against their children and not knowing how to deal with them under these circumstances. In addition to cases of violence and aggression among children towards each other.”

Conclusion
The suffering of women, men and children displaced as a result of the war remains an urgent humanitarian issue that requires international and local attention. Women in particular need support and assistance to overcome the difficulties they face, and to be able to rebuild their lives and support their families. The main demand remains an immediate ceasefire, an end to the war, and adherence to international conventions.