About 540,000 people have fled Lebanon to neighboring Syria since the escalation of the war between Israel and the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia, according to UN figures released on Tuesday.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that about two-thirds of refugees from Lebanon were Syrians and about a third were Lebanese nationals.
According to government figures, about 1.5 million Syrian refugees lived in Lebanon before the latest escalation of the conflict with Israel. Most of them had arrived in Lebanon after 2011 as a result of the civil war in their home country.
About 6 million people live in Lebanon.
In addition to the war in the Gaza Strip, Israel is fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah attacks Israel in support of the Islamist group Hamas in Gaza, which carried out a massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people.
Israel initially responded to Hezbollah’s shelling with counterattacks, but since September has launched massive airstrikes in the country and a ground offensive in southern Lebanon.
