War and displacement mar the run-up to Eid al-Fitr holiday for many in Lebanon

BEIRUT – Back home, Lilian Jamaan would have been shopping for clothes for her daughter and buying meat and sweets in preparation for the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

But now, “there’s no joy for Eid or for Ramadan or for anything,” she said by phone, speaking from a school-turned-shelter in the Lebanese city of Sidon.

As Muslims worldwide prepare for the typically joyous holiday, Lebanon has crossed a grim milestone. The renewal of the war between Israel and the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group has displaced some 1 million in Lebanon. Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,000 people, Lebanese health officials say.

Earlier this month, the Iran-backed Hezbollah entered the wider Iran war by firing rockets at Israel, prompting heavy Israeli bombardment of southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs, driving many from their homes.

Longing to return home

Basma Alloush, a spokesperson for the International Rescue Committee, said many of the children she spoke with have the same wish — “to just spend Eid at home.”

Instead, they now have to spend the holiday "in shelters, in displacement,” Alloush said.

The suffering has played out during Ramadan, with scenes of people forced to flee their homes, sleeping in tents on the streets or in their cars. Some have secured coveted spots in schools and other locations turned into shelters or are staying with relatives.

Many others scrambled to find makeshift arrangements — only a fraction of the displaced, some 130,000 people, are in shelters.

For Jamaan, the harsh conditions meant she could no longer observe many aspects of Ramadan — the dawn-to-dusk fasting, increased worship and usually festive gatherings with loved ones.

At home, she said she would fast, pray and read the Quran, the Muslim holy book, during Ramadan.

Now, she stopped her fast as the stress of the war and displacement became too much. She hopes to make up for the missed days when she returns home.

“Food is the last thing on my mind, but the circumstances are difficult," she said. Jamaan and her daughter sleep with others in the school while her husband sleeps in the car.

She misses her loved ones and her Ramadan routine. “We would break our fast, pray, make and drink coffee and I would go to the neighbors or they would come over after iftar,” the fast-breaking meal, she recalled.

Asmahan Taleb, who's also displaced in Sidon, said the run-up to Eid has been marred by hardship.

“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. "It will be Eid when we can return to our homes.”

One crisis after another

As for many Lebanese, this is not Jamaan’s first displacement.

Her daughter, she said, was born during an earlier wave of displacement from a round of fighting that was halted with a tenuous ceasefire in November 2024.

Israel continued to launch near-daily strikes in Lebanon after the ceasefire that it said aimed to stop Hezbollah from rebuilding.

“Lebanon for us is really now the epicenter of the more immediate humanitarian fallout of this broader regional crisis,” said Carl Skau, deputy executive director and chief operating officer of the U.N. World Food Program.

“People here have endured crisis after crisis. They’ve been displaced before. But that doesn’t make it any easier,” he said.

He said people he met were exhausted and hadn't yet recovered from their last displacement.

And that’s not all that’s different now.

“My concern is that the funding is not coming forward like it did last time,” he told The Associated Press. “We know there is less money available. We know there is also competing priorities. ... We will need to make an effort that really donors step up.”

Since March 2, the WFP has provided more than half million hot meals to displaced people in shelters across Lebanon.

Response efforts and overwhelming needs

Online, volunteers, organizations and businesses have come together to make, package and distribute hot meals for iftar and donate essentials — from blankets and clothes to baby formula and medications.

But the needs are many.

“There is a dire need for shelter,” Alloush said, recounting how during a recent thunderstorm, she couldn't help "thinking about the people that were sleeping outside, sleeping in tents that are not waterproof, sleeping on the mud.”

The IRC has been distributing mattresses, pillows and blankets, as well as coloring books.

“People don’t have enough clothes," she said. "Children fled with no toys or no activities to kind of get their minds off of the war.”

Eman Abo Khadra, who owns a hair salon in Sidon, said she tried to bring a bit of Eid cheer to some displaced children the way she knows best: giving them haircuts as a gift.

“It’s a morale thing," she said. "What does a child know about war or no war. … It’s just about planting some joy in their hearts.”

Despite her gesture, the toll is daunting.

“I was telling them, ‘Come on, clap; be happy; laugh,’ but ... tensions are high,” she said. “People are tired.”

Sheltering in Sidon, Alia Ismail said it’s hard to properly observe Ramadan or tap into the Eid joy.

For the holiday, her children tell her, “We want clothes; we want to go out; we want sweets,” she said. “I tell them, ‘I can’t get you that. There’s no money.’"

In normal times, she would have been cleaning her home, buying clothes, meat and sweets for Eid.

Now she sleeps in a school hallway, rolling up some clothes as a pillow under her head, she said.

Striving to recapture a taste of the holiday

In a school that sheltering hundreds of people in Beirut, Lebanon's capital, some tried to recapture a taste of Ramadan traditions and the lives they left behind.

Hallways between classrooms were adorned with decorations. One family placed a small gas burner and some meal packages from charities on a few desks lined up together.

Among those living at the school was Shaker Araqa, who lamented how his extended family has been dispersed by this war.

“We used to gather," he said. "Now, everyone is in a different place."

Nabila Hijazi, who is also living at the school with her children, say they keep asking her about the holiday and when they will return home.

“They want to live their lives," she said. “We tell them ‘God Willing, Eid comes and we return to our homes.’”

In Sidon, Jamaan said she prays “for God to stop the war, for us to return to our homes and for there to be peace.”

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Fam reported from Cairo. Associated Press journalist Mohammed Zaatari in Sidon, Lebanon, contributed to this report

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