Today in Focus - Lebanon Update 7 March : Tom McDermott

UN Peacekeepers Targeted, Civilians Killed in Bekaa Raid — Displacement Surges Past 300,000

UNIFIL / NRC / UNICEF / IRC / Ghana Armed Forces / UNHCR / Amnesty International / Al Jazeera / Reuters — March 6–7, 2026

This updates our March 5th report "Lebanon's Growing Crisis for Children"

The humanitarian situation in Lebanon has worsened on every front since our last report. The number of displaced has tripled. A UN peacekeeping base has been struck and its soldiers critically wounded. Israeli forces overnight carried out a commando raid deep in the Bekaa Valley, and left 41 civilians dead in the surrounding strikes.  And the question that hung over our earlier report — whether Israel intends to allow the people of southern Lebanon to return home at all — remains unanswered.

The Bekaa: A Raid, an Evacuation Order, and 41 Dead

In the early hours of March 7, Israeli helicopter-borne commandos landed near the town of Nabi Chit in the eastern Bekaa Valley — the deepest Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon since 2024.  Lebanon's Ministry of Public Health confirmed that at least 41 people were killed and 40 wounded in the Israeli air and ground strikes accompanying the raid. No specific numbers were given for children among the dead and wounded.  The Lebanese army confirmed three of its soldiers were among the dead, along with a number of civilians.

The IDF stated that the operation exploited the evacuation order already in place for Nabi Chit, and that anyone who approached its forces was hit. This is precisely the scenario Amnesty International warned of on March 6 — that issuing mass evacuation orders does not grant the Israeli military the right to treat those areas as open-fire zones, nor does it remove Israel's obligation to protect civilians who remain. Civilians do not lose their protected status under international humanitarian law simply because they have been ordered to leave.

A funeral was held in Baalbek earlier this week for six members of the Abd al-Sattar family, including three children — Maram, Miral and Rabih — killed by an Israeli airstrike as they slept in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

300,000 Displaced — and Still Rising

The scale of displacement in Lebanon now stands at over 300,000 people, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council — reached in less than 100 hours after the escalation began on March 2. Lebanon's Ministry of Social Affairs data shows more than 110,000 people registered in collective shelters. Of the 399 shelters opened across the country, 357 were already reported at full capacity as of March 5. This new wave sits on top of 65,000 people still displaced from the 2024 conflict who had never been able to return home.

UNHCR confirmed that over 33,600 Syrians and some Lebanese have crossed into Syria since the escalation began — refugees who had already fled one war and are now fleeing again. The IRC notes that in addition to the newly displaced from south Lebanon the country already hosts approximately 1.5 million Syrian refugees — the highest refugee-to-population ratio in the world — and that before this latest escalation, more than 4.1 million people, over 70% of Lebanon's entire population, were already in need of humanitarian assistance.

Children: 7 Killed, 38 Injured

UNICEF confirmed on March 4 that seven children were killed and 38 injured in Lebanon in a single 24-hour period as airstrikes struck the southern suburbs of Beirut and the south — figures that predate last night's Bekaa raid and will rise further. UNICEF has expanded its Mobile Primary Healthcare Satellite Units to 37 units providing consultations, immunizations and urgent care to displaced families, while child protection teams are assisting injured, unaccompanied and separated children in shelters. Many children are sleeping in cracked classrooms, on cold pavements, and in the backs of cars while their parents sit exhausted on roadsides, unable to secure shelter.

UN Peacekeepers Targeted — Ghana Protests to the Secretary-General

In the most direct attack yet on the United Nations presence in Lebanon, the Ghanaian UNIFIL battalion headquarters was struck by two missiles on the evening of March 6 in the Bint Jbeil district of southern Lebanon. Two Ghanaian soldiers sustained critical injuries; a third suffered trauma. The Officers' Mess was completely destroyed by fire. The injured are being treated at the Level One Medical Bunker inside the base, with arrangements underway for evacuation to the UNIFIL Headquarters Referral Hospital.

UNIFIL confirmed the attack but declined to assign blame. On March 7, Ghana's Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa formally lodged a protest with UN Secretary-General António Guterres, demanding a full, immediate, impartial and transparent investigation and describing the attack as a possible war crime given the protections afforded to UN peacekeeping personnel under international law.

The attack on the Ghanaian battalion is not isolated. Irish UNIFIL troops operating a few kilometres away have been under extreme pressure all week, with Israeli evacuation orders covering their entire area of responsibility. RTÉ reported on March 6 that all Irish personnel were confirmed safe, but that the situation along the Blue Line "is most intense."

Impunity and the Pattern of Violations

Amnesty International, in a statement issued on March 6, drew a direct line between Israel's past conduct and the current crisis: the absolute impunity Israel has enjoyed after previous rounds of fighting, Amnesty argued, has paved the way for the same violations of international law to recur — once again placing civilians at grave risk. Amnesty documented that Israel carried out repeated airstrikes in Beirut's southern suburbs in the 24 hours following its mass evacuation order for that area, many of them without warning. It further noted that the pattern of overly broad evacuation orders, paired with extensive destruction of civilian property in more than two dozen border municipalities both before and after the 2024 ceasefire, raises serious concerns that some orders are intended to forcibly displace civilians — an act prohibited under international humanitarian law. The overnight Nabi Chit operation, in which Israel's own military cited an evacuation order as operational justification for a lethal ground raid, will only deepen those concerns.

Quotes

"No child should ever be killed or be left to bear the lifelong physical and emotional scars of violence. The violence must stop. Children must always be protected." — Marcoluigi Corsi, UNICEF Representative in Lebanon, L'Orient Today, March 4, 2026

"The sweeping evacuation orders have sown panic and terror, displaced hundreds of thousands of people and fuelled yet another humanitarian catastrophe for a population already exhausted and reeling from multiple crises." — Kristine Beckerle, MENA Deputy Director, Amnesty International, March 6, 2026

"Issuing mass evacuation orders does not grant the Israeli military the right to treat these areas as open-fire zones." — Kristine Beckerle, Amnesty International, March 6, 2026

"It is unacceptable that peacekeepers performing Security Council-mandated tasks are targeted." — UNIFIL statement, Times of Israel, March 6, 2026

"Families who had barely begun rebuilding their lives are now forced to flee once again. People left their homes in the middle of the night with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. Once again, civilians are paying the highest price." — Maureen Philippon, NRC Country Director for Lebanon, NRC, March 6, 2026

"Despite the volatile security situation, the IRC and our partners are mobilizing to respond to the urgent needs of displaced and conflict-affected families. Rental prices are rising, competition for livelihoods is increasing, and essential services such as health care, water, electricity and education are being stretched even further." — Magda Rossmann, IRC Lebanon Country Director, IRC, March 5, 2026