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Children Paying Heaviest Price as Half a Million People Flee Israeli Bombing of Lebanon
UN Human Rights chief Volker Türk warned of violations of "international humanitarian law" by Israel, "in particular when it comes to issues around forced transfer."
Mar 06, 2026
As the broader war unleashed in the Middle East this week by the joint attack on Iran by Israel and US forces continued to escalate and intensify on Friday, advocates for children warn that young people caught in the middle of the fighting are paying the highest price for the war of choice launched by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
More than half a million people have fled their homes in southern Lebanon as Israel unleashed a deadly barrage of bombings overnight and into Friday, adding to a death toll estimated to be more than 130 people this week and following a mass evacuation order by the Israeli government on Thursday amid a wider regional war backed by the US military.
US bombing of Iran also intensified overnight following threats by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Thursday that "we have just begun."
From Lebanon to Iran this week, since Trump launched an unprovoked attack on Iran over the weekend, UNICEF estimates that over 190 children have been killed across the Middle East in the escalated fighting. "This includes 181 children in Iran, seven in Lebanon, three in Israel, and one child in Kuwait," said the group.
Israeli forces bombed numerous towns and areas around Beirut on Friday, according to dispatches from the Lebanese National News Agency (NNA), targeting the towns of Al-Majadel, Al-Duwayr, Buday, and others.
The United Nations human rights office warned Friday that Israel's "blanket displacement orders" and bombardment of Beirut and its outlying suburbs was delivering "more misery to civilians" in those areas, including children and their families.
"In all, hundreds of thousands have now been affected by these Israeli displacement orders," said the OHCHR in a statement. "Their breadth makes them very difficult for the population to comply with and therefore brings into question their effectiveness, a requirement under international humanitarian law, and risks amounting to prohibited forced displacement."
UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Friday denounced Israel's large -scale evacuation orders, saying, “These blanket, massive displacement orders we are talking here about hundreds and thousands of people. This raises serious concern under international humanitarian law, and in particular when it comes to issues around forced transfer."
In a Thursday statement, Save the Children called for the warring parties, as well as the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—to deploy every diplomatic tool at their disposal to bring "an end to hostilities" and guarantee "adherence to international humanitarian law to protect the physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing of children across the region."
Save the Children's Latifa Mattar said that children living in these nations across the region "had no say in this conflict and yet, they are paying the price. Children are now living in fear. We are hearing of children too scared to sleep, families sheltering indoors, and schools shuttered at a time when children need routine and safety most."
“We are calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities," added Mattar. "Every hour of continued conflict is another hour a child spends in fear. The international community must act now—deploy every diplomatic tool available to end the conflict, demand compliance with international humanitarian law, and ensure that children are protected. Upholding the laws of war is an obligation, not a choice. There must be a return to good-faith diplomacy before the harm to this generation becomes irreversible."
Al-Jazeera correspondent Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, warned that the humanitarian crisis in the city and surrounding areas is rapidly worsening, with people seeking shelter on nearly every street corner.
"There aren’t enough schools to shelter the hundreds of thousands of people who were forced to flee their homes after Israel’s forced displacement threat for Beirut’s southern suburbs [Thursday],” Khodr reported. “People are telling us: ‘We are not animals; we are human beings, our children are cold.'”
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'We Have Only Just Begun,' Hegseth Says as 4 House Dems Join GOP to Back Trump War on Iran
"This disgraceful vote does not change Congress' legal duty, and it certainly does not silence the millions of Americans who oppose another illegal war," said an ACLU director.
Mar 05, 2026
As US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared Thursday that "the amount of firepower over Iran and over Tehran is about to surge dramatically," four Democrats in the House of Representatives voted with nearly all Republicans to reject a bipartisan war powers resolution that would have halted President Donald Trump and Israel's assault on the Middle East country.
Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar (Texas), Jared Golden (Maine), Greg Landsman (Ohio), and Juan Vargas (Calif.) stood with the GOP for the 212-219 vote against H.Con.Res.38, which was led by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). The only other Republican to support the resolution was Rep. Warren Davidson (Ohio)—though GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales (Texas), who is facing an unrelated scandal, did not participate.
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the think tank Center for International Policy, highlighted that given Massie and Davidson's votes, "if those four Democrats had stuck with their caucus and their voters, it would have passed."
"Everyone who opposed the resolution owns this war—along with the casualties, rising gas prices, and regional chaos that comes with it."
The House vote came just a day after Democratic US Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) and all of the chamber's Republicans but Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) rejected S.J.Res.104, a similar resolution sponsored by Paul and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). As with the Wednesday vote, a range of critics called out Congress for enabling Trump's illegal and already seemingly endless war.
"This is a shameful abdication of Congress' constitutional authority to take the country to war," said Defending Rights & Dissent, noting the rising death toll. "US and Israeli strikes have hit elementary schools, hospitals, and the capital city of Tehran, home to 10 million. Six US service members have died. Trump is carrying out yet another regime change war of choice, and the American people have been overwhelmingly clear that they don't support it."
"This was Congress' best chance to stop further killings, to stop an all-out regional war with no end in sight, and to uphold the constitutional principle that prevents presidents from going rogue," the group continued. "We are deeply disappointed in both chambers' failure to stand up to this dangerous insanity."
Christopher Anders, director of the ACLU's democracy and technology division, stressed in a statement that "this failed war powers vote is nothing short of cowardly, but Congress can't dodge the Constitution forever."
"By refusing to rein in President Trump's unauthorized war with Iran, Congress has allowed President Trump to make a mockery of the Constitution and is trying to duck responsibility for putting service members and civilians in great danger," Anders added. "But, this disgraceful vote does not change Congress' legal duty, and it certainly does not silence the millions of Americans who oppose another illegal war. We will hold President Trump accountable for this abuse of power."
In the lead-up to Thursday's vote, one unnamed "senior progressive House Democrat" told Axios that the groups including Justice Democrats, MoveOn, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and Our Revolution "will primary anyone" who votes no.
After the vote, Justice Democrats shared the congressional office numbers of the four Democrats, and said to "call these spineless Dems who support Trump's new forever war with Iran and tell them to go to war themselves if they want it so bad."
Another progressive group, a youth-led climate organization Sunrise Movement, also took aim at the House Democrats who voted with the GOP, declaring on social media: "Absolutely ridiculous. Call them out. Vote them out."
Council on American-Islamic Relations government affairs director Robert S. McCaw commended all lawmakers "who voted to uphold Congress' constitutional duty and demand an end to unauthorized hostilities with Iran," particularly Massie and Davidson for their "courage to break with their party and stand on principle."
It is also "deeply disappointing" that some Democrats "joined Republicans to defeat this effort and enable an unconstitutional war," he said, warning that "their votes helped give the administration a green light to continue a dangerous escalation that threatens American lives and regional stability."
Earlier this week, Cuellar, Golden, and Landsman joined Democratic Reps. Jim Costa (Calif.), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), and Jimmy Panetta (Calif.) to introduce a competing war powers resolution that would let Trump wage war on Iran for a month. Noting that proposal, McCaw argued that "Americans did not elect Congress to issue a '30 days of carnage hall pass' for an unauthorized war. If a war is unconstitutional today, it should not be allowed to continue for another month."
“The Constitution is clear: Congress, not the president, has the authority to decide when this nation goes to war," he added. "The American people must continue pressing their elected representatives to reclaim that authority and stop another disastrous war in the Middle East before it spirals further out of control."
As of Thursday, the Iranian government put the death toll at 1,230, though US and Israeli attacks continue, and Hegseth said that "we have only just begun to fight and fight decisively... If you think you've seen something, just wait. The amount of combat power that's still flowing, that's still coming, that we'll be able to project over Iran is a multiples of what it currently is right now."
On top of the lives lost, recent reporting suggests that Trump's war on Iran could be costing US taxpayers $1 billion per day. Calling the House vote "profoundly disappointing," Demand Progress senior policy adviser Cavan Kharrazian said that "everyone who opposed the resolution owns this war—along with the casualties, rising gas prices, and regional chaos that comes with it."
"Congress needs to stop listening to warmongering elites," Kharrazian added, "and start listening to the American people who are sick and tired of being dragged into forever wars."
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Israel Accused of Using AI to Pick Iran Targets 'Without Any Human Oversight’—Just Like in Gaza
"Israel built AI targeting systems in Gaza—approved kills in 20 seconds, 10% error rate accepted," said one expert. "Now those same systems are running over Iran... and there’s an arms industry IPO-ing off the back of it."
Mar 05, 2026
After Israel's unprecedented use of artificial intelligence to select bombing targets in Gaza, experts are now sounding the alarm regarding what one analyst on Thursday called a lack of human supervision over Israeli AI targeting in Iran.
"Similarities between Israel's bombing of Gaza and Tehran are growing stronger," Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft executive vice president Trita Parsi said Thursday on X. "In both cases, it appears Israel is using AI without any human oversight."
"For instance, Israel has bombed a park in Tehran called 'Police Park,'" Parsi added. "It has nothing to do with the police. But it appears AI identified it as a target since Israel is bombing all government-related buildings. No one in Israel bothered to check and find out that it is just a park."
Borrowing from startup vernacular, tech journalist Jacob Ward calls Israel's use and export of AI technology in the post-Gaza era "lethal beta."
"Gaza was the prototype," Ward explained in a video posted this week on Bluesky. "Iran is the launch."
"[It's] a live-fire, live-ordnance lab experiment on people, killing people, that creates a pipeline of exportable products to the rest of the world, and it has become a big industry in Israel—and it's something that we in the United States have been dealing with and doing business with for some time as well."
Israel built AI targeting systems in Gaza — approved kills in 20 seconds, 10% error rate accepted. Now those same systems are running over Iran and being exported all over the world. I’m calling this “lethal beta,” and there’s an arms industry IPO-ing off the back of it. Full breakdown at
[image or embed]
— Jacob Ward (@byjacobward.bsky.social) March 3, 2026 at 4:45 PM
Previous investigations have detailed how the IDF uses Habsora, an Israeli AI system that can automatically select airstrike targets at an exponentially faster rate than ever before. One Israeli intelligence source asserted that the technology has transformed the IDF into a “mass assassination factory” in which the “emphasis is on quantity and not quality” of kills.
Mistakes were all but inevitable, but expert critics argue Israeli policy has made matters worse. In the tense hours following the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, mid-ranking IDF officers were empowered to order attacks on not only senior Hamas commanders but any fighter in the resistance group, no matter how low-ranking.
According to a New York Times investigation, IDF officers were also permitted to risk up to 20 civilian lives in each airstrike, and up to 500 noncombatant lives per day. Even that limit was lifted after just a few days. Officers could order any number of strikes as they believed were legal, with no limits on civilian harm.
Senior IDF commanders sometimes approved strikes they knew could kill more than 100 civilians if the target was considered high-value. In one AI-aided airstrike targeting one senior Hamas commander, the IDF dropped multiple US-supplied 2,000-pound bombs, which can level an entire city block, on the Jabalia refugee camp in October 2023.
That bombing killed at least 126 people, 68 of them children, and wounded 280 others. Hamas said four Israeli and three international hostages were also killed in the attack.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the US military in Iran has "leveraged the most advanced artificial intelligence it’s ever used in warfare, a tool that could be difficult for the Pentagon to give up even as it severs ties with the company that created it."
According to the Post, Palantir's Maven Smart System—which contains Anthropic's Claude AI language model—reportedly helped US commanders select 1,000 Iranian targets during the war's first 24 hours alone.
Experts are urging a more cautious approach to military AI use. Paul Scharre, executive vice president at the Center for a New American Security, told the Post that “AI gets it wrong... We need humans to check the output of generative AI when the stakes are life and death.”
It is not publicly known whether AI was used in connection with any of the deadliest massacres of the current war on Iran, which has left more than 1,000 Iranians dead, including around 175 children and others who were killed by what first responders and victims' relatives said was a double-tap strike on a girls' school last Saturday in the southern city of Minab.
Last week, Trump ordered all federal agencies including the Department of Defense to stop using all Anthropic products in apparent retaliation for the San Francisco-based company's refusal to allow unrestricted government and military use of its technology over fears it could be used for mass surveillance of Americans and in automated weapons systems, also known as "killer robots."
Trump gave the Pentagon six months to phase out Anthropic products, allowing their continued use in the Iran war pending replacements.
Project Nimbus—a $1.2 billion cloud-computing and AI contract signed in 2021 between the Israeli government and Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud—provides cloud infrastructure, AI tools, and data storage for the IDF and other agencies. The deal prohibits Google or Amazon from refusing service to Israeli government, military, or intelligence agencies.
Academics and jurists are gathered this week in Geneva, Switzerland—with a second four-day round of talks starting August 31—for a United Nations-sponsored conference on lethal autonomous weapons systems.
Attendees are examining the risks posed by killer robots that can select and engage targets without meaningful human control. They are also studying the legal, military, and technological implications of autonomous weapons systems and working to build international consensus on regulation.
“The current failure to regulate AI warfare, or to pause its usage until there is some agreement on lawful usage, seems to suggest potential proliferation of AI warfare is imminent,” Craig Jones, a political geographer at Newcastle University in England who researches military targeting, told Nature's Nicola Jones on Thursday.
While some proponents of AI weapons systems have claimed their use will reduce civilian harm, Jones stressed that "there is no evidence that AI lowers civilian deaths or wrongful targeting decisions—and it may be that the opposite is true."
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