Beirut: More than 76,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon in almost three months of near-daily fighting along the border with Israel, the UN’s International Organization for Migration has said.
The border area has seen a surge of violence since the Israel-Hamas war broke out in early October, with tit-for-tat exchanges of fire continuing on Friday between Israeli forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah, a Lebanese ally of Palestinian militant group Hamas.
In a report published on Thursday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that the escalation has displaced 76,018 people, mainly in areas of southern Lebanon bordering Israel.
More than 80 percent of the displaced Lebanese are staying with relatives, according to the report, and only 2 percent housed in 14 collective shelters spread across the south of the country, mainly in the coastal city of Tyre and in the Hasbaya region.
The rest have rented apartments or moved to homes in areas farther from the border, the UN agency said.
Cross-border violence has left 175 people dead in Lebanon, including 129 Hezbollah fighters and more than 20 civilians, including three journalists, according to an AFP count.
In northern Israel, nine soldiers and five civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.
Hezbollah, which conducts daily operations against Israeli soldiers along the border, says it is intervening in support of Hamas in Gaza.
Tensions rose further with a strike on Tuesday that killed Hamas’s number two, Saleh Al-Aruri, in a Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned that the assassination, widely attributed to Israel, “will not go unpunished.”
Israel vowed to “destroy” Hamas following the unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel which left around 1,140 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive on Gaza has killed 22,438 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.