Lebanon crisis: needs soar as UN launches new funding appeal

“Humanitarian needs are soaring with each day of the conflict; our work is unfortunately far from over…we need the funding,” said Imran Riza, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Lebanon. 

Speaking from Beirut, the veteran humanitarian expressed his shock at the devastation caused by the hostilities, involving air and drone strikes and shelling. 

He described “hospitals and clinics hit by airstrikes, government buildings destroyed, agricultural land scorched, water stations demolished and schools turned to displacement sites”.

Since the latest escalation of violence, more than 3,500 people have been killed and more than 10,000 injured. Nearly one million people remain displaced from their homes. 

“Health workers and first responders are facing death and injury on a horrific scale” while entire neighbourhoods have been turned to rubble, Mr. Riza said.

He also cited the deep and lasting trauma of repeated displacement faced by families, a lack of adequate shelter and uncertainty about being able to return home. Providing critical aid assistance in these conditions is extremely complicated and requires an urgent scale-up in support for the most vulnerable, he insisted.

“There are a lot of displacement orders happening all the time. And in fact, this morning there have been a number that have been issued, that people keep moving. So, it’s very difficult to know where people are at certain times.”

“Affected people are rapidly exhausting their coping capacities and essential services are under increasing strain,” the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, said in an update accompanying the appeal.

Heightened dangers for women, girls

Just as in conflicts everywhere, mass displacement has increased the risks for women and girls across Lebanon.

“Overcrowded shelters lack privacy, adequate sanitation and basic protection measures,” warned Andrew Saberton, Deputy Executive Director for UN population fund, UNFPA.

More than 600,000 women and girls are estimated to be at risk of gender-based violence, he noted, speaking from Cairo via video, to journalists in Geneva.

In addition, approximately 1,800 women are expected to give birth every month across Lebanon. “And yet healthcare facilities continue to come under attack, hospitals and primary healthcare centres have been forced to close and women are finding it increasingly difficult to access essential maternal health services”, Mr. Saberton explained.

Airstrike tragedy

He described how one UNFPA-supported primary healthcare centre and a women and girls’ safe space in south Lebanon that he visited “while it was being rebuilt in 2025, was once again severely damaged by airstrikes. These were amongst the few, very few facilities that continue to operate in the area.”

Warning of the protracted displacement crisis now unfolding across southern Lebanon, Mr. Riza noted that beyond Israel’s self-declared military line, an estimated 28,000 people remain. 

He added that in 2024, after conflict between Hezbollah fighters and Israel, some 68,000 people “could not go back to their villages after the cessation of hostilities”, either because it was not safe or “mainly that their villages had been destroyed. I think our estimation now is that number is going to be much, much larger, at minimum probably around 200,000, but probably more than that”.

Friday’s emergency appeal brings the overall ask by the UN and partners for Lebanon through August this year to $639.9 million.