A girls’ home in Tebnin, southern Lebanon, is repairing war damage as state support falls, increasing pressure on a facility for more than 40 residents, Reuters reported.
Ali Saad, the orphanage’s director, said Lebanon’s 2019 financial collapse reduced state funding for the home. He wants repairs to continue but questioned whether renewed fighting could damage restored areas again.
The facility sustained damage during the 2024 Israel-Hezbollah war after an Israeli strike hit a neighboring building, Reuters reported. The girls had been evacuated before the attack. Repairs have been completed on only one floor; shared spaces now serve as sleeping areas, while the basement theater remains unusable.
Established in 1978 during an earlier Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, the Tebnin home shelters girls bereaved of one or both parents and those from households unable to provide for them, Reuters reported.
Among its residents are Inaya Sultan, 13, and her 4-year-old half-sister, Malak. An Israeli strike killed the girls’ father, a paramedic, in March, Reuters reported. The home provides uniforms, schoolbags and lunches for girls attending school in Tebnin, according to Reuters. Inaya said Malak hopes to work as a firefighter or paramedic, as their father did.
Shereen Saad, 19, has lived at the home for much of her life and studies interior design at a local university, Reuters reported. She hopes to continue her education in Italy but told Reuters that conflict could interrupt those plans.
Fatima Jaffal, the 30-year-old head caretaker, told Reuters that residents returned from another evacuation during this year’s war to find Israeli troops less than 1 kilometer away. In the months afterward, she said, the rhythm of airstrikes and home demolitions grew familiar. “Life needs to continue,” Jaffal said.
Regular donations from United Nations (UN) peacekeepers in southern Lebanon are expected to stop when their mandate expires later this year, Saad told Reuters.
