Our Little Survivor: A Mother’s Story from Lebanon’s Escalating Conflict

Beirut, March 2026 – In the first light of morning, everything changed for 28‑year‑old Sahara. Holding her son Karim tightly, she escaped her home while airstrikes thundered across southern Lebanon.

"I still remember the moment we fled," she recalls, her voice trembling. "My older and younger son, Ahmad and Karim were sleeping, and my husband and I were just about to eat. Suddenly, my phone kept buzzing nonstop… forced displacement warnings had started near our area. I panicked and couldn't stop shaking. My husband rushed to wake our children, keeping calm so they wouldn’t be scared. I just grabbed whatever I could, held my children, and ran. The sound of airstrikes in the far distance made me feel like the sky was falling behind us."

The family made their way toward the mountains on the outskirt of Beirut, only to find every house already filled with others escaping the horrifying airstrikes. Eventually, they sought refuge in a public school turned into a collective shelter.

"The school is so crowded," she says. "My entire extended family, 24 of us are squeezed into three classrooms. We sleep on the floor. There is no privacy. All we do is count down the days until we can go back home. We have some savings, some support, even from the school, but all I want is a home where my family can feel safe again. Not knowing what happened to our home is the hardest part. Every night I pray, ‘Oh God, protect our home, protect our family.’ Even now, I can still see my youngest Karim shaking in the car as we escaped."

This is not the first time Karim has survived the horrors of conflict. During another wave of airstrikes in 2024, he was gravely injured while fleeing.

"Shrapnel hit our car, blowing the windows open," she remembers. "I saw Karim’s face covered in blood, a huge cut across his forehead. My husband scooped him into his arms and rushed him to the nearest hospital. After he healed physically, he began struggling to speak and lost mobility. Bit by bit, we had to teach him to move and talk again. Our lives became therapy sessions, hospital visits, and constant care. And now… conflict again. He is frightened again. And I’m terrified of what this will do to him, to all of us."

The latest escalation in Lebanon, which began on 2 March, has brought waves of airstrikes killing 687 people, including 98 children, and wounding over 304 more. Large-scale internal displacement is underway, with over half a million people forced from their homes. Over 120,000 are currently living in the almost 600 open public schools turned collective shelters.

As soon as the collective shelter opened, Medair immediately deployed its teams to the collective shelter to support families seeking safety, including Karim’s. His family received essential relief items such as blankets and mattresses helping ensure they have comfort and dignity during their stay at the shelter.

Kirollos Fares, Medair Country Director in Lebanon, emphasizes the urgency: “Only five days into this escalation, we are seeing unprecedented, forced displacement orders. Families are being told to leave with very little notice and no clarity on where they can go or how long they will be away.”

Medair is scaling up to meet urgent needs in Beirut, Mount Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and the South. Since the start of the escalation, Medair teams have assessed collective shelters and distributed over 85,000 essential relief items, including mattresses and blankets, to 27 343 people. Mobile health units are supporting displaced people in collective shelters, and community health volunteers and midwives have been trained to provide Psychological First Aid. Other activities in Collective Shelters aim at reducing acute distress and ensuring safe referrals to specialised care for those most at risk.

"We are grateful for the support we’ve received," the mother says. "It gives us a little hope, a little strength. But I fear this will take time. All we want is a stable life—a life away from fear and hardship. Just a normal life." Having fled with little belongings, Sahar and her family received essential relief items at the collective shelter including mattresses, blankets, sleeping mats, and solar lamps. These items not only restore a sense of comfort and dignity, but also helps her family create a safer, warmer space to rebuild their daily routine as they begin piecing their lives back together amidst the uncertainty of the situation.  

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Medair's work in Lebanon is possible with funding from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Department of State – United States, Swiss Development Cooperation through Interaction-CH, Lebanese Humanitarian Fund/OCHA, German Federal Foreign Office, Monegasque Cooperation for Development, Métropole de Grenoble, Agence de l'eau Rhône Méditerranée Corse, and generous private donors. 

This content was produced with resources gathered by Medair field and headquarters staff. The views expressed herein are those solely of Medair and should not be taken, in any way, to reflect the official opinion of any other organization.

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