‘We are stuck here’: In cramped shelters, Lebanon’s displaced dream of their villages

‘We are stuck here’: In cramped shelters, Lebanon’s displaced dream of their villages Gergana Krasteva on Mon, 09/14/2026 - 15:21 Six months after the war, Lebanese families still live in limbo with no homes to return to Hassan Bisher, 33, a taxi driver in Nabatieh, speaks about losing his home in the town of Kfar Tebnit (Gergana Krasteva/MEE) Off A 72-hour-old newborn is laid to sleep on a thin, worn-out mattress on the floor of a school in Sidon, south Lebanon, his first days unfolding in a classroom-turned-shelter.  His mother, Hala Loubany, 29, has just had a C-section. She watches over the baby boy, one hand resting protectively over the throbbing scar on her stomach.  Next to them, separated by a shelf crammed with canned food and clothes, an elderly man is preparing lunch for himself and his wife.  Three families live in this classroom, their few belongings packed into corners as they wait to return to Nabatieh’s southern district. Israel's bombardment has destroyed infrastructure, including thousands of homes, across south Lebanon, with more than two dozen Lebanese border towns and villages razed. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); “Hala’s water broke here, in the school, so she was taken to the hospital at the last minute,” her father, Ali Mahmoud Loubany, told Middle East Eye. “It was an emergency so doctors performed a C-section.” Hala was six months pregnant when she, her husband, their two sons, aged six and one, and her father fled Nabatieh. The school in Sidon is the second shelter they have been forced to seek refuge in. Directly opposite the classroom is the only women’s bathroom on the floor. Families have to schedule showers in the three laminate stalls and wash their clothes in the shallow sinks. For Hala, who is still recovering from surgery, poor sanitation is a major source of anxiety, as she worries about her wound becoming infected.