Palestinian refugees face new displacement as Israel’s bombs hit Lebanon
First aid responders work at the site of an Israeli air strike that targeted an area in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh, on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese coastal city of Sidon on 8 March 2026
Justin Salhani reports in Al Jazeera on 17 March 2026:
In 1948, Manal Matar’s grandparents fled Akka (Acre) in what was then northern Palestine and crossed into Lebanon. They thought they would soon return, but the borders closed, and the family ended up in Rashidieh camp, near Tyre, a coastal city in south Lebanon. They’ve lived there ever since.
But in the early hours of March 2, Israeli forces began heavily attacking near their house, Manal said. “There was bombing all around us,” she said. Her family packed up and started heading north, with the violent sounds of explosions echoing around them. “The war was terrifying, and we were on the road for more than a day,” she recalled. Now, they are staying with Manal’s maternal aunt in the Beddawi refugee camp, in Tripoli, north Lebanon.
Manal is one of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon now living out a generational trauma caused by Israeli displacement.
“God protect us that this situation won’t last longer than this,” she said, her voice giving in to exhaustion. Many Palestinians like Manal are aware that displacement is not necessarily temporary. “God willing, it ends,” she said.
‘New Nakba’
Israel intensified its war on Lebanon on March 2, after Hezbollah attacked Israel for the first time in more than a year.
Hezbollah claimed it was responding to the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei just two days earlier in an Israeli strike that marked the beginning of a US-Israeli war on Iran. A ceasefire in Lebanon had ostensibly been in effect since November 27, 2024, despite the United Nations and Lebanese government counting more than 15,000 Israeli ceasefire violations since then, leaving hundreds in Lebanon dead.