A mother of newborn twins sheltering in a displacement centre in Lebanon said she was told to evacuate her home ahead of planned strikes by the Israeli army. “Our home was bombed, and everything I had prepared for the children was gone,” she told the BBC.
Ghada is among more than one million displaced people in Lebanon, as Israel continues to intensify its attacks on the armed group Hezbollah. She now sleeps alongside her babies – and 2000 others – in a university-turned-shelter in the southern city of Sidon.
Lebanon’s third largest city and known as the gate to the south of the country, Sidon has taken a large share of the displacement caused by the war. Many of the families who have arrived there come from areas of Lebanon where Hezbollah enjoys significant support.
In March, Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said a buffer zone would be set up inside southern Lebanon and that Israel would keep security control over a swathe of the territory. All houses in Lebanese villages near the Israeli border would be demolished, he also said.
Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Iran’s supreme leader at the start of the Iran war. Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon and has launched attacks across the country in response, while Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets at Israel. Israel was also carrying out near-daily strikes on Hezbollah across Lebanon before that despite a ceasefire that was agreed in 2024, accusing the group of trying to recover its military capabilities.