Children from an orphanage supported by the Irish Defence Forces have been forced to leave their shelter in Beirut to be housed in more than 20 different homes because of Israeli bombing.
The children had been evacuated from Tibnine Orphanage in southern Lebanon late last month after it suffered damage during Israeli air attacks.
Bombs landing within 50 to 100m of the orphanage, which is dubbed Ireland’s embassy in south Lebanon, left the 40 children cowering in terror as debris flew in and around the orphanage.
Explosions had also rocked the town’s Lebanese Red Cross HQ, with one bomb exploding right beside the walls of the station’s yard where its ambulances are parked.
Staff led by orphanage director Ali Saad quickly put the children into a bus and they joined the hundreds of thousands of people who fled to Beirut, to escape Israeli air attacks on targets across southern Lebanon.
After their 15-hour journey to the Lebanese capital, the children were put up in a hotel near the centre of the city.
But the rise in Israeli air raids has increased the risk to the children and it was felt that they would be better off if they all split up.
An attack on a densely-populated residential area of the city centre, for example, left 22 people dead and 117 wounded on Thursday.
The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said a further seven – including a two-year-old girl – died in Israeli attacks on Friday across southern Lebanon.
Mr Saad, who is also a volunteer rescue and convoy co-ordinator with the Lebanese Red Cross, said the situation in the city is now just so dangerous that the orphans have had to be moved for their own safety.
He told the Irish Examiner: “We had to move the children to different homes.
“We took the view that it was better to have them split up rather than in one place.
“The bombing has increased so much all around Lebanon that it is just safer for them to be in a lot of different places rather than under one roof.”
He added: “The children, like so many other children having to live through what is going on, are sacred but they are at least safe.
“It is not ideal that they should all be split up because they have all been one family for so long and all under the one roof of the orphanage.
“But we have to do what is best above what is ideal.” As well as bombing raids on residential areas of Lebanon, the Israelis have also been firing at and killing members of the Lebanese Armed Forces.
Unarmed civilian rescue workers have also been killed and volunteers with the Lebanese Red Cross have been injured in a spate of attacks in recent days and weeks.
UN peacekeepers have also been fired on, with at least four being hospitalized amid growing international condemnation against Israel for repeatedly hitting UNIFIL’s headquarters in Naqoura and nearby positions.
The Tibnine Orphanage was built with the help and support of peacekeepers from the Netherlands in 1979, but Irish peacekeepers have been heavily involved with it ever since.
Funding for the orphanage, which normally houses up to 65 children, comes from a variety of sources, including the Lebanese government, Defence Forces personnel serving with the UN, and donations from UN veterans.
