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A photo shows a family fleeing amid Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon (Courtesy of George Azar)

For Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon, Israel’s War Echoes the Past

Israel's ongoing escalation in Lebanon has displaced more than a million people.

Words: Hanna Davis
Pictures: George Azar and Hanna Davis
Date:

Merfat Hassoun’s relatives and friends strolled in and out of the cramped living room in Baddawi camp for Palestinian refugees, near Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli. Some carried in suitcases, while others offered greetings and their blessings that Merfat and her family had arrived safely. 

Amid the commotion, 59-year-old Merfat, her sister, her daughter, and her granddaughter gathered closely together, sharing lahm bi ajeen (Arabic flatbread with meat) after the long journey that followed their escape from the el-Buss refugee camp near the southern Lebanese city of Tyre.

On Sept. 23 — when Israel began intensive bombardments across Lebanon — el-Buss camp and its surrounding areas also came under fire. 

Merfat said they withstood the attacks for almost a week, initially unwilling to leave their homes, but an Israeli airstrike overnight on Sept. 27 struck next door The next morning, the family packed their bags and rushed out. 

After a four-hour drive, they arrived at their relative’s home in Baddawi camp, about 170 kilometers (around 106 miles) north of el-Buss. Lebanon is home to 12 refugee camps for Palestinians, who have spent the last 75 years stateless and suffering one period of mass displacement after another.

Echoes of the Past

Merfat’s parents fled to Lebanon from Haifa, now in modern-day northern Israel, in 1948, when Zionist forces took control of the city and within a week violently expelled around 50,000 of its Palestinian residents.

That same year — which became remembered as the “Nakba” (catastrophe in Arabic) — Zionist forces raided homes and decimated hundreds of villages in Palestine, killing around 15,000 people and displacing roughly hundreds of thousands across the map of the Middle East.

A woman walks along a rubble-strewn street in the Palestinian neighborhood of Fakhani, in Beirut, in July 1982 (Courtesy of George Azar)
A woman walks along a rubble-strewn street in the Palestinian neighborhood of Fakhani, in Beirut, in July 1982 (Courtesy of George Azar)

Merfet feels that now in Lebanon she is reliving her parents’ horror stories from 1948. “My parents and my grandparents lived through this,” she said, “What happened to them — during the massacre and the genocide in ‘48 —  now we’re experiencing the same, or more.” 

“We Saw the Missiles”

Merfat’s daughter, 22-year-old Jinan Muhammad Dakwar, stood near her mother, bouncing her own daughter, just one-year-old, on her hip. “The strike was beside us, in front of us, we saw the missiles,” Jinan said, recounting the Israeli airstrike the night before. 

Jinan said her daughter now shakes and cries when she hears Israeli bombardments — or any loud noises. “Even if it’s just a chair moving, she begins to cry,” she said. 

According to estimates, the fighting has displaced more than 1.2 million people. Lebanese authorities say it may be the “largest displacement movement” the country has ever experienced. Since Israel began its airstrikes on Lebanon on Oct. 8, 2023, have killed 2,483 people and injured 11,628 people, the Lebanese health ministry announced on Oct. 21. 

Piles of rubble simmer after an Israeli attack on Beirut's southern suburbs on Oct. 2, 2024 (Hanna Davis)
Piles of rubble simmer after an Israeli attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Oct. 2, 2024 (Hanna Davis)

According to the Lebanese outlet Megaphone News, at least 75,00 Palestinians refugees, like Merfat, live in Tyre alone, most of whom have fled the camps under threat from Israel. 

It’s not the first war Merfat has lived through, nor is it the first time Israeli forces have uprooted her from her home. Born and raised in the el-Buss camp, she was just 13 years old when Israel carried out Operation Litani in 1978, when some 25,000 Israeli troops entered southern Lebanon to fight members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), who had killed 35 civilians in northern Israel. 

During that Israeli operation, the violence killed about 2,000 Lebanese and Palestinians, and el-Buss camp suffered extensive damage. 

“I’ve Seen Every War”

When Merfat was 17 years old, in 1982, Israel invaded southern Lebanon and occupied the area for 18 years, operating largely south of the Awali River. On Sept. 30, 2024, Israel, once again, began a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, and troops have since been fighting with Hezbollah operatives in the area. 

Residents walk through the wreckage of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's Fakhani neighborhood in July 1982 (Courtesy of George Azar)
Residents walk through the wreckage of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's Fakhani neighborhood in July 1982 (Courtesy of George Azar)

Merfat said news of Israel’s current invasion has terrified her. “My blood froze in my veins,” she explained. “I saw [the ‘82 invasion] with my own eyes. I don’t want any of my family to see it again.”

In 1986, Merfat married a Palestinian man living in Yarmouk refugee camp, in Syria’s capital, Damascus. She lived in Yarmouk for almost 25 years with her husband, part of the camp’s once-vibrant community.

Then, following the 2011 Syrian uprising, the camp came under siege and bombardment mostly by forces allied with the Syrian regime. Once again, in 2012, Merfat fled with her family, this time back to el-Buss camp in Lebanon.

“I’ve seen every war,” she said with a sigh. She gazed at her granddaughter. “I’m so tired. I’m so sad, it’s so tragic… I left [el-Buss camp] so that this little child wouldn’t experience what I’ve experienced.” 

“Terrified” 

On Oct. 5, an Israeli airstrike hit the Beddawi camp while reportedly targeting a Hamas leader. The attack killed the leader, his wife, and their two daughters, who were living in the camp. 

“We are terrified,” Merfat said after that attack. “We don’t know what will happen next.”

Israel has since expanded its daily attacks throughout the country, destroying roads, bridges, farms, and vast amounts of other civilian infrastructure. Palestinian residents fear Israeli escalation within the camps, where a number of members of Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups live. A number of these groups, including Hamas, have joined forces with Hezbollah in the fight against Israel under the umbrella of the Iran-backed “axis of resistance.” 

An Israeli airstrike severely damaged a building in the Basta neighborhood of Beirut, on Oct. 11, 2024 (Hanna Davis)
An Israeli airstrike severely damaged a building in the Basta neighborhood of Beirut, on Oct. 11, 2024 (Hanna Davis)

Israel has targeted six Palestinian refugee camps with shelling and evacuation orders since Oct. 8, 2023, when fighting between Hezbollah and Israel began on Lebanon’s southern border. 

On Oct. 1, Israel hit Ain el-Hilweh camp in Lebanon’s southern city of Saida — the largest for Palestinian refugees in the country and often referred to as the focal point for Palestinian resistance. The strike targeted the home of Munir al-Maqdah, a commander in the Palestinian group, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Maqdah reportedly survived the attack, although it killed at least five people. 

Lebanon’s Palestine camps are densely packed, with small alleyways, making it difficult for rescue workers to enter, meaning Israeli strikes could lead to mass civilian casualties, according to Dr. Ziad Abu al-Ainain, the head of the emergency and ambulance unit of Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in Lebanon. For instance, Ain el-Hilweh is home to 80,000 people, living in an area of 1.5 square kilometers (about .58 square miles). 

“Clothes and Bags Ready

Just outside Ain el-Hilweh camp, Zainab Ahmad Jumma, 42, and a handful of volunteers were cooking a large pot of mansaf (Arabic meat and rice dish) for displaced families in the area. 

Zainab — whose relatives hail from the Palestinian village of al-Khalisa, now in modern-day northern Israel — has spent most of her life in Ain el-Hilweh. She has lived through multiple conflicts her community has endured over decades, serving on the front lines of the humanitarian response through her initiative, Zeitouna Association. 

An Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon's coastal highway left a bombed-out car in a ditch (Courtesy of George Azar)
An Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon's coastal highway left a bombed-out car in a ditch (Courtesy of George Azar)

“Palestinians are always displaced,” she said. “We unfortunately always have our clothes and bags ready to go. We have to rebuild our homes again and again. It’s very difficult.”

Now, Zianab is serving meals to hundreds of families displaced from the fighting in the south — helping fill the gaps in what she said is a very under resourced humanitarian response.

She said that her initiative has registered 800 families, or around 4,000 people, of all nationalities, who have fled to Ain el-Hilweh camp from their homes and villages under Israeli fire. However, she worried that the camp would not be safer. “Lebanon is facing a big war because of Palestinians in Gaza, so it is our duty to serve them,” she said.

On the shelves of the Palestine Land Studies Center (PLSC) at the American University of Beirut, in the Lebanese capital, the history books show images similar to those today. 

In one, a tank drives through a deserted town south Lebanon. The text below reads: “In June 1982, Israel launched a second invasion of Lebanon, more violent and intensive than the first, its stated aim was to eradicate the resistance from southern Lebanon, but its real goal was much broader. By the end of the summer, some 19,000 Lebanese and Palestinians had been killed.” 

“Much Harder than ’78 or ’82”

George Azar, a Lebanese-American photojournalist and filmmaker, documented Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. The photos he took in July 1982 could have been from October 2024 — buildings in a Palestinian neighborhood reduced to rubble, a truck loaded with a group of displaced people leaving the south, and a massive crater in a highway, the result of an Israeli airstrike. 

After over 40 years, George is once again documenting Israel’s invasion and attacks on Lebanon. While Israel’s primary target in Lebanon has shifted from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1982 to Hezbollah today, George explained, “They’re still trying to destroy a movement, which you can’t destroy militarily.”

Destroyed cars lie toppled on their sides after an Israeli airstrike hit a building in norther Lebanon's Aitou (Hanna Davis)
Destroyed cars lie toppled on their sides after an Israeli airstrike hit a building in norther Lebanon’s Aitou (Hanna Davis)

Back at Baddawi refugee camp in northern Lebanon, cars drive in, packed to the brim with clothing, bags, and other belongings. Past the flags waving for Hamas and the PLO party Fatah the incoming vehicles are greeted by a large mural of the cartoon figure Handala, the spiky-haired boy with his hands behind is back — a symbol of the Palestinian struggle and resistance — who won’t turn around until Palestine is free. 

“What Israel is throwing at us now, is much harder than ‘78 and ‘82,” said Merfat, surrounded by her family members. “What have we done [for Israel] to attack us with these weapons? Why are these children guilty?” 

Top photo: People flee Israeli attacks near the seaside town of Jiyeh, Lebanon, in July 1982 (Courtesy of George Azar)

Hanna Davis

Hanna Davis is a freelance journalist reporting on politics, foreign policy, and humanitarian affairs.

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