Back home, many families in Lebanon would normally be preparing for Eid al-Fitr—shopping for clothes, buying meat and sweets, and building routines around the holiday that ends Ramadan. Instead, an Associated Press report described a run-up to Eid marked by renewed fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and by mass displacement that has left people sleeping in shelters, tents, cars, and with relatives rather than at home.
In Sidon, Lilian Jamaan said there was “no joy for Eid or for Ramadan or for anything,” speaking from a school-turned-shelter. The report said the war’s disruption has meant Jamaan could no longer observe many parts of Ramadan as she had before, including the daily fast and the usual festive gatherings with loved ones, and that she stopped fasting as the stress and hardship grew. She said she and her daughter sleep in the school with others while her husband sleeps in the car, and she expressed hope to make up missed days once she can return home.
The Associated Press reported that displacement in Lebanon has surged as the conflict has expanded in the region, with the Iran-backed Hezbollah entering the wider Iran war by firing rockets at Israel, followed by heavy Israeli bombardment of southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs. For people still displaced at the end of Ramadan, the report said the question is whether Eid can arrive anywhere except in displacement arrangements—something Asmahan Taleb, also displaced in Sidon, said she struggled with. “How can we celebrate Eid when we’re displaced from our homes and our land? Where is the Eid? Where is the happiness?” she said, adding that it will feel like Eid when they can return.
The International Rescue Committee’s Basma Alloush said many of the children she spoke with shared a similar wish: “to just spend Eid at home.” Alloush said that while some people have managed to secure places in schools and other shelters, others have had difficulty finding even basic shelter and are living in makeshift conditions that are not always considered safe or weatherproof—issues she described in the context of iftar support and urgent needs for essentials.
Carl Skau, deputy executive director and chief operating officer of the U.N. World Food Programme, told the Associated Press that Lebanon is “the epicenter of the more immediate humanitarian fallout” from the broader regional crisis. He said people have endured repeated crises and have been displaced before, but that “doesn’t make it any easier,” noting that people he met were exhausted and had not fully recovered from earlier displacement. Skau also said his concern was that funding is arriving differently than it did last time, telling the Associated Press that donors need to step up as competing priorities reduce available resources.
The report said that since March 2, the World Food Programme has provided more than half a million hot meals to displaced people in shelters across Lebanon. It also described efforts by volunteers, organizations and businesses to distribute items for iftar and for children, including mattresses, pillows and blankets, as well as coloring books and other essentials. Alloush said there is “a dire need for shelter,” and that people sleep outside, in tents that are not waterproof, or on mud after rain, while the report said children are also arriving with few belongings and limited ways to distract them from the war.
In Sidon, the report described a local attempt to add small moments of normalcy: a hair salon owner, Eman Abo Khadra, said she gave displaced children haircuts as a gift to help lift morale. She said it was “a morale thing” and that it was about “planting some joy in their hearts,” even as she described tensions as high and people as tired. Another displaced woman in Sidon, Alia Ismail, said her children have been asking for clothes, going out, and sweets for Eid, and that she told them she could not get these items because there is “no money,” describing sleeping in a school hallway with rolled-up clothes used as a pillow.
In Beirut, the report said some families living at a school tried to recapture Ramadan traditions, including decorating hallways and setting out small meal packages from charities. It described ongoing questions from children about the holiday and the way displaced families continue to hold onto the hope of return—telling them, as the report put it, “God Willing, Eid comes and we return to our homes.” For Jamaan, the report said she prays for God to stop the war so that she and others can return home and for peace to come, as the holiday approaches without the usual structure of worship, festivities, or household life.