Lebanese Australians are again reeling from mass displacement and deaths during conflict in their ancestral homeland.
More than 500,000 people have been forced to leave their homes, Lebanon's Social Affairs Minister Haneen Sayed told a press conference on Sunday.
Some 117,000 people were in government-run shelters, she said, after the Israel Defense Forces issued evacuation warnings to more than 100 towns across southern Lebanon early last week.
Most of Sydney woman Pansè Saleh's family in Lebanon have been forced out of their villages to the capital, Beirut.
The impact of the renewed conflict on Australia's Lebanese community was profound, she said, including on her own children.
"Everyone has a lot of family members there," she said.
"And everyone sees that they may go back [to Lebanon] and they're not alive anymore.
"We've got kids in schools who … are worried for their grandparents, their cousins and uncles and aunties."
Almost 400 people dead in Lebanon
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said the "consequences of this displacement, at the humanitarian and political level, may well be unprecedented".
"Our country has been drawn into a devastating war that we did not seek and did not choose," he said.
After Israel and the United States began attacking Iran in late February, the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets at Israel in support of Tehran.
Israel has responded with waves of air strikes on southern Lebanon and the suburbs of Beirut, saying it is targeting "Hezbollah infrastructure".
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Lebanon had a responsibility to "enforce the ceasefire agreement and disarm Hezbollah", referring to a ceasefire reached in November 2024 under which Lebanese authorities agreed to demilitarise southern parts of the country bordering Israel.
"If you do not do this, there will be disastrous consequences for Lebanon," he said.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich warned Dahiyeh, a suburb in the south of Beirut known for being a Hezbollah stronghold, would soon resemble parts of Gaza.
"You wanted to bring hell on us, but you have brought hell upon yourselves," he said.
Almost 400 people in Lebanon had died by Sunday night, including 83 children, according to the health ministry.
"There is around 1,500 injured, among them a large number of children," said Firass Abiad, a former Lebanese health minister who works as a surgeon at the American University of Beirut.
Dr Abiad told Radio National that several hospitals in Greater Beirut were affected by Israeli evacuation orders, meaning patients had to be evacuated to other facilities.
"Now, more areas are becoming unsafe within Beirut," he said.
Some in southern Lebanon cannot leave
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said there were about 115,000 Australians in the Middle East, which meant it dwarfed "any consular crisis we've previously had".
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade declined to respond to detailed questions from the ABC, including about how many Australians were in Lebanon.
Speaking with the ABC's Insiders program on Sunday, Senator Wong said the Australian government had warned against travel to Lebanon "for a very long time".
"We don't want to see a major ground offensive, a ground war in Lebanon," she said.
"We do want to see Hezbollah ceasing its missiles into Israel, and we want to see de-escalation on that front."
At least a quarter of a million Australians have Lebanese ancestry, according to the 2021 census.
Sydney-based biochemistry researcher Saad Ramadan is one of them — and he is anxious about the safety of his family in Lebanon.
Dr Ramadan's parents, both in their 80s, fled from southern Lebanon to Beirut with his younger brother, who lives with a disability.
They are staying in an apartment where six families, including those of several of his siblings, are taking shelter.
They were "lucky" in that they had somewhere to stay, Dr Ramadan said.
Many do not have this privilege.
Rents in Beirut have skyrocketed far beyond the budgets of many displaced people.
Some accommodation providers have turned away Shia evacuees, fearing that sheltering them could mean being targeted by Israeli bombs.
Others, Dr Ramadan said, have refused to leave their homes in southern Lebanese villages altogether.
"They would say, 'I'm not leaving … I will not go to Beirut and sleep on the streets,'" he said.
Amnesty International's deputy Middle East director Kristine Beckerle said Israel's sweeping evacuation orders had "sown panic and terror … and fuelled yet another humanitarian catastrophe".
"Many civilians, including older people, children, people with disabilities, cannot evacuate or may have nowhere safe to go," she said.
UN warns situation 'to get even worse'
Lebanese Australians have stepped up to donate funds and basic goods for the displaced, but charitable efforts are frustrated by major disruptions to flights around the Middle East.
Macquarie University security studies expert Mariam Farida said the Lebanese government's capacity to assist displaced people was "extremely limited".
"Years of economic collapse, political paralysis and weakened public institutions have left the government struggling to provide even basic services," she said.
The month of Ramadan, when most Muslims refrain from eating and drinking during daylight hours, is compounding the challenge.
Even venturing out to buy vegetables for dinner could be deadly, Dr Ramadan said.
"Living [in Australia], we're very lucky and privileged that we can go on the train, go to work, come back home peacefully. It's not the case over there," he said.
"You go out to do some shopping, you're not really sure if you'll come back or not."
Ms Saleh said her grandmother's village home was bombed during the 2024 war with Israel.
"We lost a lot of friends — very, very close friends of more than 25 years," she said.
"They were killed with their kids at home because they couldn't flee the village."
This time around, however, strikes on hotels and other locations in Beirut meant it felt as if nowhere was safe, Ms Saleh said.
Dr Abiad, the Beirut surgeon, said there was large-scale opposition to Hezbollah's recent actions.
"If you look at the population in Lebanon, the vast majority do not want further conflict," he said.
Yet United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert warned the situation was "set to get even worse".
"The choice is clear: stay on a path of death and destruction, or commit to restraint, engagement and dialogue," she said.
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