The serious escalation in hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel has forced "tens of thousands" of people to flee their homes in Lebanon, including Syrian refugees, leaving border routes to Syria choked with vehicles trying to get through, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Wednesday.
"Hundreds of vehicles are backed up in queues at the Syrian border; many people are also arriving on foot, carrying what they can," UNHCR reported. "Large crowds, including women, young children and babies are waiting in line after spending the night outdoors in falling temperatures. Some carry fresh injuries from the recent bombardments."
UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said that the news was "yet another ordeal for families" who had fled years of civil war in Syria, "only now to be bombed in the country where they sought shelter…The Middle East cannot afford a new displacement crisis. Let us not create one by forcing more people to abandon their homes."
Mr. Grandi's appeal follows heavy Israeli shelling of Lebanon on Monday that has killed at least 558 people - including children and women - and injured 1,835, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
The strikes followed a weekend of rocket attacks on Israeli communities that came in response to last week's extraordinary series of explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members - the latest deadly development linked to the ongoing war in Gaza.
Leaving 'by the minute'
More than 27,000 people have been displaced over the past 48 hours and people have been "abandoning their homes by the minute", UNHCR said.
Latest UN data points to at least 90,530 newly displaced people in Lebanon in addition to the nearly 112,000 uprooted since October 2023.
Together with partners including the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, the UN agency is present at the border crossings with Syria "providing food, water, blankets and mattresses to those arriving, and guiding them towards support available once in Syria".
Lebanon hosts around 1.5 million Syrian refugees who left their country during the ongoing civil war which has left critical infrastructure in tatters and millions in need of assistance.
