Tripoli, Lebanon — Manal Matar’s family has lived as refugees since her grandparents fled Akka (Acre) in 1948 and settled in Rashidieh camp near Tyre. They left expecting to return. Instead borders closed and generations have lived in exile.
In the early hours of March 2, Manal says Israeli forces launched heavy attacks near her home. ‘There was bombing all around us,’ she recalled. Her family packed and headed north, traveling more than a day before arriving at her aunt’s house in Beddawi refugee camp, in Tripoli. She is one of thousands of Palestinians in Lebanon reliving generational displacement. ‘God protect us that this situation won’t last longer than this,’ she said. ‘God willing, it ends.’ Many, however, fear this may not be temporary.
The escalation followed renewed cross-border violence after Hezbollah struck into Israel for the first time in more than a year. Hezbollah said it was responding to an Israeli strike days earlier that it described as the start of a US-Israeli campaign against Iran. A ceasefire nominally in effect since November 27, 2024, had already been punctured repeatedly: UN and Lebanese authorities reported more than 15,000 alleged violations, leaving hundreds dead.
Israel has issued mass evacuation orders covering more than 14 percent of Lebanese territory, including south Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut known as Dahiyeh. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz warned those displaced by the fighting ‘won’t return home’ until northern Israel is secure.
Palestinian camps affected include Rashidieh, Burj Shemali and el-Buss in Tyre, and Beirut camps such as Burj al-Barajneh and Shatila. Lebanon hosts refugees from the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa, when hundreds of thousands were expelled and villages destroyed. Around 200,000 Palestinian refugees remain in Lebanon, often among the country’s most vulnerable because restrictive employment laws severely limit work opportunities.
Wartime vulnerability has been magnified by the recent attacks and evacuation orders. Since March 2, more than 800,000 people in Lebanon have been displaced, many staying with relatives, in hotels, or renting apartments. The Ministry of Education opened schools as temporary shelters, but aid workers and refugees say those centres are prioritising Lebanese nationals, leaving Palestinian refugees, Syrian refugees and foreign domestic workers to find other options.
Yasser Abou Hawash, who has lived near el-Buss camp since the 1960s, fled to Beirut during heavy fighting in 2024 and stayed two months. As fighting resumed and Israel announced a new ground operation in south Lebanon, he considered leaving Tyre again. ‘I’m living what my parents lived in 1948,’ he said. ‘This is a new Nakba, and it repeats every 10 years.’
In Beddawi, officials said more than 250 Palestinian families have arrived there from Beirut or the south. Dalal Dawali, born in Beddawi but who moved to Dahiyeh with her husband 20 years ago, returned to her mother’s house in Beddawi with her four children when the fighting began; her husband remained behind. ‘Every day, we say we want the war to end so we can go home,’ she said, speaking of the neighbourhood she had come to call home.
Dalal’s family traces its roots to al-Khalisa in the former Safad governorate, a village on the border with Lebanon that was destroyed; the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona now stands on its ruins. Her grandparents fled to Lebanon, her mother was born in Nabatieh camp, and after Nabatieh was destroyed in 1974 Dalal’s mother, Em Ayman, fled to Beddawi. Em Ayman said most of her family were killed in that period. ‘Now, just like what happened with my family, the same is happening with me,’ Dalal said, a map of Palestine on the wall behind her.
The trauma of repeated displacement runs deep. Elia Ayoub, a Lebanese-Palestinian academic and researcher in the UK, told Al Jazeera that many Palestinians see the Nakba not as a single past event but as an ongoing process embedded in daily life since the founding of the Israeli state.
Israeli troops and operations have returned to southern Lebanon repeatedly over decades, including invasions and occupations in 1978, 1982–2000, 2006, 2024 and now 2026. Some in the south fear they may not be able to return at all this time. ‘We’ve stopped feeling that we live in security or stability,’ Manal said. ‘Life is terrifying, honestly. Even before the war, there were assassinations every day on the roads. We no longer feel safe sending our kids to their schools or jobs. We honestly don’t know where the strikes will come from.’
That insecurity is pushing some families to consider leaving southern Lebanon permanently. While many Palestinian refugees say they want to return to their homes in Lebanon and maintain the hope of one day going back to Palestine, others say the repeated shocks have worn them down and made relocation a more realistic choice.
Dalal clings to the hope of returning to Dahiyeh. Em Ayman, now 68, wept as she spoke of loss and longing: ‘Our parents were uprooted from Palestine, but we felt that Lebanon was our homeland. All our children live here. But we still need to return to our country, to Palestine.’