The UN’s main children’s agency reports that the intensifying conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has displaced more than 400,000 children in Lebanon in the last three weeks. Lebanon, already struggling with multiple crises, now faces the added devastation of war.
Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah, which escalated into a limited ground invasion last month, has disrupted public schools across the country, leaving Lebanon’s institutions, which already faced a number of other crises, now forced to grapple with a potential collapse of the public education system.
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While some private schools continue to operate, public schools have already suffered significant damage that is likely to directly affect Syrian and Palestinian children, the country’s most vulnerable groups.
Ted Chaiban, UNICEF’s deputy executive director for humanitarian actions, told the Associated Press on Monday that the conflict poses a threat to a “lost generation” due to the exposure of children to violence, their overcrowding in shelters, or their forced erecting of makeshift tents.
“What struck me is that this war is three weeks old, and so many children have been affected,” Chaiban said. “As we sit here today, 1.2 million children are deprived of education. Their public schools have either been rendered inaccessible, have been damaged by the war, or are being used as shelters.”
Chaiban urged political solutions over military actions, calling for a cease-fire in both Lebanon and Gaza and pointed out that UNICEF’s emergency funding appeal for $108 million has only received 8% of its funding to date.