Wave of refugees overwhelms the collapsed state

Abdou and his men look tired and worn out. Every night when the bombs fall over Beirut, they move out. In rickety jeeps and decrepit fire engines, they drive from their station in the town of Hadath to neighboring Dahiyeh, the heavily shelled Shiite-dominated suburb of Beirut, to put out fires, rescue the injured and dead and clear away rubble.

Lebanese Civil Defense crews are on the front lines of this war, which has turned parts of the Lebanese capital and country into killing zones over the past two weeks. Of course it is dangerous, says Abdou, who does not want to give his last name. “But we’re just doing our duty here.”

Despite the bravery shown by the 2,800 members of the civil defense during these times, their resources are limited. “We got our last vehicle in 2001,” says Abdou’s boss, Joseph Abou Chaya, the civil defense operations manager, in his crumbling headquarters in Beirut. “We lack a lot of things, but especially flak jackets and fireproof jackets.”

1.2 million people on the run

Abou Chaya has already lost six men in this war. The Israelis occasionally warn the civil defense brigades of impending attacks. Nevertheless, the rescuers put their lives in danger every night as they travel to the neighborhoods and villages that are being heavily bombed.

 

The open war between Israel and the Shiite militia Hezbollah is causing enormous damage in Lebanon. Every night the capital Beirut trembles under Israeli bombs. In the south and east of the country, entire villages were razed to the ground. Over 2,000 people have been killed in the country of 6 million and more than 1.2 million are on the run. And with every new Israeli evacuation order in the south, there are more and more.

The small country cannot cope with this humanitarian catastrophe. Almost everything here is run down in a similar way to civil defense: after years of corruption and mismanagement and a deep economic crisis, all that is left of the state of Lebanon is an empty shell that threatens to collapse completely in the face of the Israeli hammer blows.

The heads of the local crisis teams in cities like Sidon or Zahle, where a particularly large number of refugees are stranded, complain about a lack of crisis management and a lack of money. In the ministries, many employees try to work as well as possible in their respective areas. The Ministry of Health takes care of the hospitals and the supply of medication, while both the Social and Environment Ministries are responsible for accommodating the refugees.

 

Help from abroad

But in a country where there is no electricity even in peacetime and roads are no longer repaired, this is an impossibility. “Lebanon cannot actually cope with a crisis like this and is therefore dependent on outside help,” says Tess Ingram, UNICEF spokeswoman in Beirut. In light of the disaster, the relief organization has expanded its activities in the country, flown in new staff and launched a fundraising campaign to raise $105 million. “We can at least work with this for the next three months,” says Ingram.

The Americans have promised $157 million – which, given the extensive arms aid to Israel, seems like a mockery to many people in Beirut. The financially strong Gulf states also want to help. But all of this is hardly enough to get the catastrophe under control. Almost two weeks after the great exodus from the villages in the south, entire families are still sleeping on the streets in Beirut. The poorest of the poor – such as African domestic workers or Syrian refugees – receive almost no government help.

In addition, many Lebanese complain that there is not enough coming from the international community. “I didn’t see anything about it in the first week,” says the head of the crisis team in the city of Sidon. “At least that’s changing now.”

At Beirut airport, where the pilots of the national airline MEA launch their Airbuses even in the hail of bombs as if it were the most normal thing in the world, more and more cargo planes with relief supplies are actually landing. On Sunday afternoon, a jet touched down from Copenhagen with 25 tons of medicine and hygiene products from Unicef, which will be handed over to the Ministry of Health for distribution. Firas Abiad, the minister responsible, attended the handover in person.

 

“It’s not the first time we’ve done this”

Abiad is considered one of the few capable men in the cabinet made up of favorites and opportunists. The surgeon led the pandemic response during Covid in 2020 and is familiar with crisis management in the Lebanese chaos state. But as he waits on the tarmac for the plane to roll up, even he resorts to slogans of perseverance: “Help from abroad is important, if only because we now realize that we are not completely alone,” he says. But that’s not enough.

Most Lebanese feel abandoned. So, as so often, they help themselves. In “Suk al Tayeb”, a restaurant with an attached garage in Christian East Beirut, where an organic market usually takes place on Saturdays, dozens of helpers are now cooking food, packing it and loading it into the trucks from aid organizations that later distribute the food rations to refugees.

“It’s not the first time we’ve done this,” says Christine Codsi, one of the organizers. She had already cooked for those in need in 2020, when the port in Beirut exploded and the state seemed just as overwhelmed as it is now. “Unfortunately, we Lebanese are used to this,” she says.

 

“The only problem is: we can’t hold out for long. An international aid organization is currently helping us financially. But if the money is gone, it will be difficult.”

In addition to the employees, volunteers also work at “Suk al Tayeb”, such as Rukaya Ajami, who is actually a fitness trainer. The 33-year-old lives in the hipster district of Mar Mikael, where there is usually partying on weekends. Now war has come here too. Ajami’s family fled headlong from the southern city of Tire to Beirut a week and a half ago. “My parents and siblings lived in my one-room apartment before they were able to travel via Syria and Iraq to my brother in Sierra Leone,” she says.

The parties have their own aid programs

But the committed citizens are just as overwhelmed by the extent of the war and suffering as the powerless state. That’s why in many places the very institutions that many Lebanese actually hold responsible for the destruction of their country are stepping in: the powerful, sectarian militias and parties that have always held Lebanon hostage. The big ones have long had their own aid programs.

 

When the war broke out, Hezbollah not only had an armed wing, but also hospitals, social facilities and even its own civil defense force, which was deployed in the areas it controlled. But these organizations are now coming under Israeli fire, just like the militia fighters. Recently, several hospitals in southern Lebanon were destroyed in attacks, and just a few days ago Israel bombed an Islamic relief service building in Beirut.

In Aley, however, high up in the mountains east of Beirut, the apparatus of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt’s ruling socialist party PSP is functioning perfectly. His people run several schools that have been converted into refugee accommodation. They were just prepared, Jumblatt saw it coming, says Ribal Abou Sakin, who heads the crisis team here. On the wall in his office hang the portraits of Kamal and Walid Jumblatt, father and son of the clan that has ruled the areas of the Druze minority like feudal lords for decades.

Meanwhile, in the shelters, activists with the PSP logo on their lapels distribute food to those in need. Entire families from southern Lebanon have also been accommodated here. Some of them are not here for the first time. “We fled here in 2006, during the last war,” says Ali Kamel RManti, a refugee from the south. “It’s like history is repeating itself.”