Helping shelter families displaced by conflict

Lebanon, Beirut and other locations. Umm Hassan fled Nabatieh, a city in southern Lebanon, with her daughter and grandchildren, after their home was damaged in a bombing. They had to drive for two days to reach Beirut. That car journey should normally take no more than two hours.

At first, they slept in their car. In October 2024, along with about 1,200 other people, they were sheltering in a school in Beirut’s Burj Hammoud neighborhood. Three quarters of Lebanon’s public schools were serving as emergency shelters.

Since September 2024, the confrontation between Israeli forces and Hezbollah has devastated people’s lives. Funding from the Central Emergency Response Fund is helping humanitarian organizations respond to the unfolding crisis.

On 14 October 2024, the CERF allocated US $10 million in a Rapid Response allocation to provide immediate help to people affected. This money is providing urgent food assistance, protection and shelter, safe water, and emergency health care for Umm Hassan, and thousands like her.

Shelter, sanitation and basic supplies

The Rapid Response allocation helped UNHCR provide people with essential supplies and critical information.

Thanks to CERF funding UNHCR is working with local partners like the Red Crescent to distribute critical supplies – blankets, cooking supplies, warm clothes – to people on the move, both within Lebanon and on the borders with Syria, where thousands fled.

Funding from CERF and other donors has allowed UNICEF to respond to water and sanitation needs in displacement sites, and to scale up education and child protection activities – giving children a bit of normality in a terrifying situation. For example, UNICEF and Red Cross Lebanon helped make sure displaced families in Zahle and Beirut had drinking water, mattresses, sleeping bags, hygiene and baby kits with diapers and wipes.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people continue to live in uncertainty.

“Half of my house was destroyed. We hope that one day we can rebuild and go back,” says Umm Hassan, who, like thousands of others, is just hoping for a return to safety.

Posted December 2024.

Includes information from an original story by UNHCR, published in October 2024.

More information on the CERF allocation to Lebanon

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