Humanitarian explains the desperate crisis facing hundreds of thousands in Lebanon

Since mid-September, there has been a dizzying escalation in the nearly year-long conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, displacing 90,000 Lebanese people in the last week alone.

Non profit organisations are struggling to keep up with the overwhelming need for basic necessities as they face waves of refugees daily.

Juan Gabriel Wells is the director for the International Rescue Committee in Lebanon and told Metro his team have had to relocate for safety due to increased strikes.

Lebanon said Israeli strikes on Monday killed more than 560 Lebanese and injured almost 2,000 in the deadliest attack since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

Several Hezbollah leaders have been targeted in the attacks, including the commander of its most elite unit who was killed in a strike in Beirut.

But civilians have been uprooted from their homes and many of them killed in the chaos – including refugees who fled from the Syrian War years ago.

For many of these refugees, this will be their third or fourth time being displaced from their homes due to conflict, Mr Wells said.

He told Metro: ‘It’s desperate. There is a sense of panic, of a lot of the people not knowing where to go. People are still going to Beirut, now we’re seeing that the larger majority are now going to the north near the border with Syria.

‘It’s really tragic for the Syrian refugees here. They are stuck between a very big rock and a very hard place. Where are they going to go when they have no acceptance – even from the Lebanese government?’

There are an estimated 1.5million Syrian refugees living across Lebanon after civil war erupted in the neighbouring country over a decade ago.

Mr Wells helps organise response teams to provide necessities to communities in Lebanon, many of which are comprised of Syrian refugees.

He added: ‘We’ve got almost a shadow wave of displacement that we’re not counting that is not counted in official figures.

‘There are many unregistered migrants and unregistered refugees here that are neither recognised by the government or even by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for Refugees, the UNHCR.

‘We estimate one in three people in the whole of Lebanon is a refugee. There’s a displacement of people that are under the radar who absolutely have nowhere to go, and no one is tracking them. Those are the people that are most vulnerable and most at risk.’

Humanitarian aid organisations have already been affected, he explained, with many of his staff having been displaced from their homes in Lebanon already.

‘My main concern isn’t just the physical safety of civilians or Children or paramedics and aid responders. There has to be a red line for every party in this country.

‘We need to have access to people, we need the ability to give people what they need. Right now, we need the international community to step up and start pumping more resources here on the response.’

Thousands of civilians have been leaving southern Lebanon as Beirut has been flattened by Israeli strikes, leaving cars and roads covered by the rubble debris of exploded buildings and hundreds killed and 1,000 wounded.

The UK has deployed 700 troops to Cyprus to prepare for a possible evacuation of thousands of Britons, while Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has urged Britons to leave immediately.

The situation is continuing to worsen as strikes continue.

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