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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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'Total Panic' Across Beirut as Israel Issues 'Unprecedented' Mass Evacuation Warning
"They want civil chaos in this country," said one journalist of Israel's military plans in Lebanon.
Mar 05, 2026
The Israeli military on Thursday issued what the Times of Israel described as an "unprecedented" evacuation warning to residents in Beirut's southern suburbs ahead of planned strikes against Hezbollah.
According to the Times of Israel, the warning "covers four major neighborhoods in the southern suburbs" of the Lebanese capital, and represents a marked difference from past evacuation warnings that have typically covered specific locations where Israel intended to launch strikes.
In the warning, Israeli Army spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee told residents of the four neighborhoods to "save your lives and evacuate your homes immediately," and warned that any movement southward toward the Israeli border "may endanger your lives."
Israel has deployed soldiers and conducted airstrikes in Lebanon as its military also joins the US in attacking Iran in an operation they began late last week. The US and Israeli attacks have led to a widening conflict in the region, with the Iran-backed Hezbollah launching missiles at Israel in retaliation.
Maha Yahya, director of the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, said in a Thursday social media post that the Israeli warning has caused "total panic across the city," as the area being targeted by Israel is home to "at least a half million people."
Lebansese-Australian journalist Rania Abouzeid similarly described "widespread panic" across Beirut in the wake of the order.
"Traffic is choked, people rushing to leave and head north," Abouzeid wrote. "Drones in the air. WhatsApp messages urging people to crack windows open to avoid shattering from expected blasts."
Ariel Oseran, senior Middle East correspondent for i24News English, posted video on social media showing packed streets filled with cars of people trying to escape the impending Israeli attack.
Residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs seen fleeing shortly after the IDF issued an evacuation warning for the entire area. https://t.co/V34p1mhCW6 pic.twitter.com/LCQfOxO59J
— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) March 5, 2026
Mohamad Safa, executive director of PVA Patriotic Vision, an international multilateral organization with special consultative status at the United Nations Economic and Social Council, said that the evacuation order was making a dangerous situation on the ground in Lebanon even worse.
"Our teams have been on the ground assisting [internally displaced peoples] since day one," he wrote. "The humanitarian situation in Lebanon is going from bad to worse. Shelters are overcrowded, and there are no apartments available for rent. Emergency relief is insufficient. People are sleeping on the ground without blankets or mattresses in the bitter cold."
Journalist Rania Khalek of BreakThrough News said that Israel "is trying to empty out huge portions of the country," and she speculated that it was being done in a way to maximize chaos on the ground.
"The Israelis are telling Lebanese they are displacing from Shia neighborhoods to take roads to what will inevitably land them in Christian and Sunni areas," she wrote. "They want civil chaos in this country."
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said that his agency "has opened emergency shelters for displaced people—Palestine refugees, Lebanese, and Syrians alike" in the wake of Israel's evacuation warning.
Lazzarini also emphasized that "Lebanon needs peace, not more destruction, displacement, and death."
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Israel Gives 'Mass Expulsion Order' to Civilians as It Invades Southern Lebanon
As it pushes further into Lebanon, Israel ordered around 200,000 people living south of the Litani River to "immediately" flee.
Mar 04, 2026
Israel ordered residents in southern Lebanon to "immediately" leave their homes as it advanced troops further into the country on Wednesday, prompting "serious concern" from the United Nations as its assault on the country ramps up.
"Residents of southern Lebanon—you must move immediately to areas north of the Litani River," Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted in Arabic on X as Israel escalated a campaign of airstrikes and moved troops into several villages.
The region south of the Litani River spans hundreds of square kilometers and makes up about 9% of Lebanon's total territory, according to the Associated Press.
Around 200,000 people live in the area south of the river, which has served as the beginning of a buffer zone between Israel and Hezbollah since Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2006 as part of United Nations Resolution 1701.
On Monday, Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz said that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "have approved for the military to advance and seize additional controlling areas in Lebanon and to defend the border settlements from there."
According to Nora Ingdal, Save the Children’s Country Director for Lebanon, evacuation orders given by Israel as it entered villages in the past three days have created a situation of "pure chaos" for civilians forced to flee their homes.
Lebanon's Ministry of Social Affairs reported that about 58,000 people, including an estimated 16,000 children, had already been displaced as of Tuesday.
"Our team is hearing cases of children across Lebanon sleeping in cars, on cold pavements, and in partially damaged classrooms with cracks in the walls, while parents are sitting on the side of the streets crying, exhausted from little sleep after being unable to get into proper shelters with their children," Ingdal said.
Sana Kawtharani, a community health educator for Doctors Without Borders, described the impossible choice that over 12,000 people had to make after being ordered to leave the town of Sarafand on Tuesday, after having sought shelter there earlier.
"We know how hard it is to leave our home, our people, our villages, and our memories," Kawtharani said. "Around us in the neighborhood, some were forced to leave because they have children and elderly who are terrified by the sound of Israeli shelling."
"They carried what they could and left in cars, not knowing where they were going," she said. "There are children, the elderly, and the sick stuck on the road in very harsh conditions."
Israeli attacks in Lebanon since 2023 have killed more than 4,000 people and injured more than 16,000, according to the Lebanese health ministry, which says most of the victims have been civilians. More than 370 have been killed since a ceasefire in November 2024.
"This war began 15 months ago, and until today, it hasn't stopped," Kawtharani said. "Every day there is shelling, despite everything we hear about a ceasefire, but this has not been implemented on the ground."
Israel’s evacuation order for all of southern Lebanon came following an intensification of airstrikes overnight around Beirut the previous evening, which killed at least 12 people according to state media.
On Tuesday, Israel also reportedly carried out another "double-tap" strike in the Tyre district of southern Lebanon, killing three paramedics with the World Health Organization (WHO) and injuring six more who were in the process of helping others wounded in a previous strike.
Though Lebanon was already being struck by Israel on a near-daily basis despite the 2024 ceasefire, hostilities exploded over the weekend following Israel and the United States' attack on Iran, sparking retaliatory strikes on Israel from the Iranian-aligned militia Hezbollah.
According to Middle East Eye, Israel had authorized a barrage of strikes on Lebanon even before the first retaliatory rockets and drones were fired by Hezbollah following the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday.
Israel has not reported any deaths from Hezbollah's attacks, though two soldiers sustained moderate injuries on Wednesday from anti-tank fire in southern Lebanon.
According to Lebanese authorities, Israeli strikes on dozens of sites across the country have killed at least 72 people and wounded 437 as of Wednesday.
Lebanese media reported on Wednesday that Israeli troops have pushed into the town of Khiam, which is roughly six kilometers from Israel’s border, marking their furthest advance into the country since the war broke out in 2024.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the peacekeeping force that has operated in southern Lebanon for nearly 50 years, said on Wednesday that it had “serious concern” about Israel’s order “demanding evacuation of the civilian population from UNIFIL’s area of operations to north of the Litani River.”
UNIFIL said on Wednesday that “peacekeepers observed today several [Israel Defense Forces] movements and military activities, including near El Khiam, Beit Lif, Yaroun, Houla, Kfar Kila, Kherbeh, and Kfar Shouba. All of these are happening while Israeli airstrikes and other air activities continue.”
It said these actions "not only violate Resolution 1701, but also Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity."
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