The Lebanese University in Tyre opens doors for displaced

Lebanese University students in the South Lebanese town of Tyre found 1,200 refugees on campus, as reported by National News on October 26.

These refugees are among the numerous residents of the south Lebanese-Palestinian border towns and cities who were ousted due to the Israeli–Hamas war.

The president of Tyre’s municipalities, Hassan Dbouk states that 40,000 to 60,000 people living near the Palestinian borders have been expelled from their homes. While several of these refugees were able to relocate to second homes or homes of relatives, 6,236 have been spread out across shelters and schools in South Lebanon.

The sheer amount of migration has caused very challenging conditions for the displaced. Yolla Ali al Swaid, who had to flee her village in the border town of Dhaira after a sheeling hit her home, told Reuters “The school’s four floors are all full. We’re 11 people in the room with my sister’s family.”

READ: No ‘red lines’ from Biden for Israel invasion of Gaza

Furthermore, there are significant sanitation concerns due to the large amount of people compared to the available bathrooms. Scabies, a skin disease caused by lice, has already started spreading among the displaced.

The already suffering public school system in all of Lebanon, including the south was further damaged by the war. The dire security situation has interrupted around 8,000 students in the border towns education, as 52 out of 300 located in the south were forced to close.

Additionally, the displacement is negatively affecting the education system outside the damaged areas. Since the refugees are forced to take shelter in schools, the educational system in South Lebanon can not operate as it normally would. Inaya Ezzeddine, a lawmaker from Tyre, said that every school that is opened for the refugees will have to close for students.

The 2023 Israel-Hamas war started on October 7. After Hamas fired rockets into southern Israel, fighters entered, causing clashes with Israeli security forces. Israel has responded with a large bombing campaign, including the bombing of a hospital in Gaza. Due to Lebanon’s borders with Palestine and the presence of Hizballah, a paramilitary group with associations with Hamas, the war has had damage on southern Lebanon, where rockets are being launched between the Israelis and Hizballah, causing several people in the border towns to leave their homes.

The National