The war has already displaced nearly a million Lebanese, and aid groups warn of a humanitarian crisis

Beirut — Fatima Naja slept on the street for two days after fleeing her home in the southern suburbs of Beirut following an Israeli mass evacuation order.

All the schools the government had turned into shelters were full, and the family couldn’t afford a hotel or apartment, so she and her husband eventually moved to a tent in the country’s largest stadium, while their children and grandchildren sought refuge near the southern coastal city of Sidon.

In just 10 days, more than 800,000 people have been displaced by war in Lebanon, just over a year since the last conflict uprooted more than a million Lebanese from their homes. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, a humanitarian organization, that’s one in seven people in the tiny country. Many have no place to stay, and the cash-strapped government has been able to accommodate only 120,000 people as it scrambles to open shelters and bring in more supplies.

Naza, who uses a wheelchair, said it was more difficult this time to be forced from his home when Israel and Hezbollah were last at war a year ago. Attacks targeting an Iranian-backed militant group were more intense and unpredictable, and Israel’s evacuation order came suddenly, leaving her unable to gather all her belongings.

“Strikes used to target a specific area, but now they’re hitting all areas,” she said, taking a drag of her cigarette. More than 700 people, including 103 children, have been killed in the war, Lebanon’s health ministry said on Friday.

Israel stepped up its attacks on its northern neighbor after Hezbollah fired several rockets into Israel after killing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at the start of the war.

In 2023, the militant group’s support for another Iranian-backed group, Hamas, led to an Israeli attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon, with most Lebanese hoping that Hezbollah would not respond to an attack on Iran. Resentment toward Hezbollah and its supporters has soared in Lebanon as internal tensions and divisions simmer in the deeply divided country.

Fearing being targeted, landlords are raising apartment rents to deter new tenants. Meanwhile, hotels have been screening guests more strictly since Israel struck two hotel rooms it said targeted members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard operating in Beirut.

Some who don’t have family and friends or can’t afford an apartment or hotel room are sleeping on the streets or in their cars around central Beirut, trading comfort for safety. However, that sense of safety was shattered after an overnight Israeli strike killed at least eight people and wounded more than 30 in the capital’s Ramlet el-Baida neighborhood, where many displaced people pitched tents by the sea or slept on mattresses on the boardwalk.

Humanitarian groups, suffering from years of underfunding, are struggling to keep up. They warn of a humanitarian crisis.

“The needs are increasing faster than our ability to respond,” Matthew Luciano, head of the International Organization for Migration in Lebanon, said at a recent press conference.

Meanwhile, the government is using Lebanon’s largest sports stadium as a makeshift shelter, where Najah, her husband and more than 800 others are sleeping in semiopen corridors under the stands. It has toilets and sinks, but no showers and only sporadic electricity.

“If they bring us food, it’s not enough. … A tin of sardines or a loaf of bread or a gallon of water, it’s not enough,” Naza said Thursday from his folding bed.

In the parking lot of the stadium where Lebanon’s national football team plays regularly in peacetime, children played a game of pickup as an Israeli drone flew overhead, recognizable by its whirring. From there one can see and hear the bombs exploding nearby daily.

Naji Hammoud, who oversees sports facilities for Lebanon’s Ministry of Youth and Sports, said he did not expect to take on such a heavy responsibility.

“It’s a race against time,” Hammoud said, as aid workers and volunteers scrambled to pitch tents.

More than a million people were displaced in the last war, but it was nearing its end after a year of limited fighting that gradually escalated. This time, what took months took days.

Israel’s rapid bombardments rocked Lebanon overnight after Hezbollah’s initial rocket attacks, and mass evacuation notices caught people off guard. Israel first called on dozens of villages south of the Litani River to flee north. It later warned residents to evacuate Dahiyeh, an area of ​​predominantly Shia suburbs on the southern edge of Beirut, one of the country’s most populous places.

All main roads from southern Lebanon to the capital were gridlocked as people scrambled to find somewhere safe to stay.

“We were on the road for two days until we found this place that accepted us,” said Seganish Gogamo, an Ethiopian worker who fled the southern city of Nabatih and took refuge in a Beirut church that hosts migrant workers from Asia and Africa. She fled in the middle of the night after intense airstrikes.

There is no end in sight to the war, as some 100,000 Israeli troops are massed along the UN-designated Blue Line, which divides the two countries in anticipation of a ground invasion. Many fear that the Israel-Hezbollah conflict could continue beyond the Iran war.

Joe Saiya was one of dozens of residents who stayed in their border village of Alma al-Shaab during the first few days of the war, hoping they would not have to leave. It is a Christian village, and Israel has targeted mostly Shiite communities where Hezbollah operates.

Sayya and others appealed to the Vatican and the US, describing themselves as observers in the conflict, insisting there was no military presence or activity in them. He spent days taking refuge in a church.

But when his friend was killed in an Israeli drone attack while watering his plants, he knew it was time to leave. He and others rang the church bell one last time before leaving for the capital in a convoy of United Nations peacekeepers.

Arriving at a church on the northern outskirts of Beirut to hold a funeral Mass for a friend, Saiya said the sense of relief at being somewhere safe was quickly replaced by the grim realization that this war might be different from previous ones.

“At this time, there is a possibility that we will not be able to return to our village,” he said.

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Associated Press reporters Jamie Keaton in Geneva and Fadi Tawil in Beirut contributed to this story.