Interviews by Guy Smallman, edited by Khalid Sidahmed

A school should be a place of safety. A place where children learn, play, build friendships and imagine a future. For children across Lebanon earlier this year, Israel’s latest assault turned that basic expectation upside down. Schools were been destroyed, emptied, converted into shelters or made inaccessible by bombardment and displacement. Teachers were driven from their homes, children deprived of education and subjected to fear and trauma.

Lebanon has faced Israeli invasions, occupations, bombardments, assassinations and attacks for generations. The present war is therefore not an isolated event. It is another chapter in a history of Israeli military violence across the region. 

Ahmad Soufan helped establish schools inside displacement centres in southern Lebanon when children were suddenly deprived of education.

He describes what happened when families began fleeing their homes:

“When the war began and people started fleeing their homes, we saw that these children were suddenly left without schools, activities, or any educational support”. The response was to bring education into the shelters. But Soufan stresses that these emergency schools were about much more than lessons.

“Our objective was never simply to teach academic subjects. None of us could replace a real school. We wanted to raise a generation that is resilient—a generation that will defend and demand its right to education, because every child has the right to learn, regardless of the circumstances”.

UNICEF has documented the devastating impact of the conflict on Lebanese children, including displacement, psychological trauma and disruption to education. During the intensified fighting in April 2026, UNICEF reported that Israeli airstrikes killed and injured large numbers of children. The psychological consequences will not disappear with a ceasefire.

Dr Nasrine Chahine, President of the Contractual Teachers’ League in Lebanese Primary Public Schools, represents around 15,000 teachers. Yet her organisation operates with extremely limited resources. She describes an education system already weakened by years of economic crisis, political interference and chronic underfunding. The war has deepened these existing crises, leaving teachers displaced, students without regular schooling, and schools and educational infrastructure under attack.

The impact has been particularly severe in the south.

“The education sector has been severely affected. Students spent long periods without schooling. In the border areas south of the Litani River, many schools have been destroyed”.

Chahine describes an incident in Sidon, the third-largest city in Lebanon, where an attack struck approximately 500 metres from a school while students were attending classes: “This created panic and fear among both students and teachers”. She describes teachers witnessing children running from their classrooms and hiding under desks during air raids: “The children were subjected to intense psychological terror”.

The trauma is compounded by displacement. Children are not simply losing lessons. They are losing the stability, safety and security that make education possible. Teachers, too, are being forced from their homes and communities, while many have lost their livelihoods and the ability to work normally.

Despite this, solidarity did play an important role, Dr Chahine explains. “Teachers in safer areas welcomed displaced colleagues into their homes, helped them find accommodation, and tried to obtain food and other assistance for them.”

Dr Chahine describes the struggle of independent teachers to organise outside the control of established political parties. “We believe teachers have the right to participate in shaping education policy, promoting social justice, and taking part in social dialogue”. But independent teachers’ organisations operate with almost no resources. She explains: “Teachers’ salaries had already collapsed after 2019. An hour of teaching that had once been worth around 13 US dollars fell to about one or one-and-a-half dollars.  If we want to organise even a simple awareness meeting, many teachers cannot afford to attend”.

And she has a direct message for trade unions internationally:

“If you can help us participate in conferences, workshops, and international meetings, it would allow us to tell the world what is really happening”.

This is where workers’ solidarity becomes more than a slogan.

What you can do:

• Pass a model motion in your union branch, see our Lebanon toolkit for more
• Read and share our Briefing on Lebanon published in September 2026. Use it to build support across your workplace, union, community and wider networks. [Download here]