Mutual aid is a lifeline for the million people displaced by war in Lebanon

This article Mutual aid is a lifeline for the million people displaced by war in Lebanon was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

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Before daybreak on March 2, in response to the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran and assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel from Lebanon. Israel retaliated with air strikes on Beirut and its suburbs, renewing the decades-old conflict between the two countries. Thousands fled their homes.

Over the course of March, Hezbollah attacks continued and Israel escalated to a large-scale military operation across Lebanon, including a ground invasion. There were more strikes on residential neighborhoods and “evacuation notices” spanning large parts of south Lebanon. 

Local initiatives like community kitchens and mutual aid efforts have become vital as Israel’s aggression triggers mass displacement and a growing humanitarian crisis. Foreigners living in Lebanon, as well as Lebanese expats abroad, are fundraising internationally in solidarity with the displaced and funneling the daily goods and cash necessary for survival to those living in shelters and tents around the country.  

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that over a million people have been displaced since early March — approximately 20 percent of people in Lebanon. As of March 28, around three weeks into the war, 136,148 people were registered as displaced in shelters by Lebanon’s Ministry of Social Affairs. 

Shelters began opening on the first day of the war, run by both the government and civil society groups. Schools and stadiums became official shelters. Churches, abandoned buildings and parking lots are accommodating many others. 

Local NGOs leapt to action to provide food and other essentials. Ahla Fawda, a humanitarian and environmental organization in Beirut that usually works on urban planning and initiatives like buying up plastic waste, instantly shifted their operations toward crisis response, according to founder Imane Assaf. Ahla Fawda’s Eco Hub, which provided relief during the 2024 war with Israel, is now operating as a place for people affected by displacement to get together for meals, share space and access clothes and other supplies. Ahla Fawda has partnered with the We Deserve Better Foundation to manage the space, and Barzakh, usually a library and cafe, is providing meals that are cooked on site by volunteers.

Nation Station, a community kitchen that was birthed as an immediate response to the Beirut Port explosion on Aug. 4, 2020, also resumed crisis operations. They have served over 28,761 meals a day since the war began and are always buzzing with volunteers. 

Volunteers show up at Eco Hub, Nation Station and many other sites daily. “The first day the displacement began, I began looking for places to assist and volunteer,” said Nour Haddad, an architect based in Beirut. “I went to Nation Station because I knew it is always open.” 

Officially, government shelters are meant to be open to all displaced people, regardless of nationality or migration status. But reports have surfaced of non-Lebanese people being turned away. Lebanon is home to more than a million Syrian refugees and 200,000 displaced Palestinians, many of whom now find themselves displaced again. Along with migrant workers, they are among the most vulnerable in Lebanon, with limited access to jobs and services like public health care. Over 180,000 Syrians have returned to Syria, a country that has remained relatively stable in the current regional crisis. 

Many migrant workers have ended up in informal shelters or camping out. Initiatives led by migrant workers have sprung back into action, some of them operating as part of Reclaim Our Rights collective, a coalition of women migrant workers in Lebanon who organize and advocate for rights of domestic workers and provide community support. A statement from Reclaim Our Rights said that its membership, made up of “community leaders, mothers and activists,” was assisting displaced migrant women through community kitchens, food boxes and assistance paying rent to informal shelters.

Many fundraisers and volunteers are putting their efforts toward those outside the conventional shelter system. “Recently, I’ve been trying to go towards other initiatives [besides Nation Station], too,” Haddad said, “to divide my time as per the needs announced on social media or spontaneous WhatsApp groups that have emerged since early March.” 

Social media groups have become a crucial way to connect NGOs and individual aid efforts with shelters that are outside the governmental system or lack support. One such hub is a WhatsApp group begun by students at the Saifi Institute for Arabic Language, which draws Arabic learners of all ages from around the world. Group announcements range from specific calls, such as an individual family that needs children’s clothing, to information like where to find medical assistance. The group has expanded to include other foreigners living in Lebanon, a few local residents and several NGOs, including a Brazilian humanitarian project and a fundraiser providing sanitary napkins.

Even as locals and foreign residents within Lebanon have mobilized, Lebanese expats around the world are also running fundraising campaigns to distribute aid and cash to displaced people across Beirut. Tania Shoukair, a mental health worker who lives in the Netherlands, is fundraising for the second time, after doing so during the 2024 war in Lebanon. “I feel somehow I have managed to make my way into the epicenter of privilege, and organizing mutual aid is the minimum I can do at this moment,” Shoukair said. 

Global political education on the Israeli war on Gaza has raised solidarity for the current situation in Lebanon, helping with fundraising, Shoukair added. 

Shoukair’s sister Chiri, a journalist and musician in Lebanon, is among the network that distributes the aid on the ground. A majority of the funds go toward direct financial support to families, who receive either $50, $100 or $150, depending on the number of people. Another 20 percent is spent on blankets, pillows and mattresses, and the rest goes to clothing, personal hygiene, food boxes and medicine, with some set aside to take care of stray animals. Chiri stretches the money as far as she can by collaborating with local businesses and initiatives, and buying items in bulk.

For Jad Essayli, a Lebanese-American lawyer who raised funds for the first time after the Beirut blasts in 2020, when he was still living in the U.S., tapping into a global network from his home in Lebanon has been essential. Lebanon has one of the biggest diaspora populations in the world and yet, Essayli said, “Most of our donations are coming from non-Lebanese people.”   

Essayli and others said that what’s challenging is not necessarily raising funds but getting them into Lebanon, due to its unique banking situation. The country’s 2019 banking crisis triggered a host of restrictions on withdrawals and transfers from abroad. Lebanon also lacks platforms and tools such as a GoFundMe or major credit card systems, Shoukair said. These issues also cause delays in dispersing funds to families, Essayli said.

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While food, water, gas and clothing are increasingly scarce as the crisis deepens, the most urgent need Essayli saw in Beirut, Saida and other southern cities was money for housing. “People were going back to homes made targets by Israel, because of the lack of money to rent another place,” he said.

Given the sheer scale of the crisis, volunteers and fundraisers are already overwhelmed, four weeks in. As Israeli aggression intensifies by the day, with plans to turn south Lebanon into an occupied “buffer zone” and some Israeli politicians even calling for an annexation, there is a deep fear of a protracted crisis and a sense that the response from the Lebanese government has left much to be desired. Essayli described a feeling that many share as they face a war with no end in sight: “I hope for an immediate response from the Lebanese government for dignified housing, with a long-term consideration.”

Even as the European Union and countries including Italy, France and Jordan have pledged aid, Essayli is concerned that the external aid is not sufficiently making its way to the ground. He also hopes for greater commitments of support as humanitarian needs in the country grow by the day. 

Assaf said that her greatest concern is not about funding for aid efforts, but about peace. “I hope I can sleep without having to wake up the next day to bad news, yet again,” she said. “We hope for all families to be able to return home.”

This article Mutual aid is a lifeline for the million people displaced by war in Lebanon was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

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