00:00Well, France 24's Claire Pakalan joins me now from the southern Lebanese city of Sidon.
00:04Claire, what's the latest on the fighting around there now?
00:10The Israel Defense Forces say they are continuing their expanded ground operation in the southern area of Lebanon.
00:18That their goal is to create what they call an additional layer of security for Israelis living in the north
00:23of Israel.
00:24So basically a buffer zone. The plan is to eliminate terror infrastructure.
00:29That's the words of Israel Katz, Israel's defense minister.
00:33Him saying very clearly yesterday that none of the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese residents who have been displaced from
00:39their homes.
00:39We're looking at more than a million displaced Lebanese now.
00:42None of them will be able to return to their homes in the south of the country until the security
00:46of Israelis in the north of Israel is guaranteed.
00:49What exactly the guarantee is, of course, remains an open question.
00:54Hezbollah continuing to send rockets across the border.
00:56And some do get through Israel's air defenses.
00:59I'm here in Sidon and I can tell you this is a city where many people from the south have
01:05been displaced.
01:05You can see behind me tents have been put up.
01:09People who have not managed to find shelter in the various shelters that have been put up here.
01:13The makeshift shelters are living in the streets.
01:15Claire, as you're saying, this is a million people who have been displaced.
01:19If I'm not wrong, there's something like one in six of everyone in Lebanon over the past two and a
01:25half weeks.
01:25Tell us a bit more about the humanitarian situation like they're in Sidon and what's being done to help.
01:59That's right.
02:00Schools have been turned into shelters.
02:02I was just speaking to Najwan.
02:04She's an elderly lady from the town of Serafan, which is not too far from here.
02:08And she said that she was here on her own.
02:11Her son works in a hospital there, so he's staying.
02:13He needs to continue his duties in the hospital.
02:16Her husband and her daughter are making trips back and forth to the home because they want to collect some
02:21of their belongings to get a bit more comfortable.
02:23She says she has managed to find a place to stay in a building, but she's in there with 15
02:27other people and there's no running water.
02:29She showed us these plastic boxes and an empty bottle of water, and she was basically planning to go up
02:36to some charities who set up here and who are giving out aid.
02:39And she was hoping she could fill up her boxes with some food because without running water, she's got no
02:44real way of actually making or cooking any food.
02:47And when we asked her, do you feel scared, she said, yes, of course, well, yes, I do.
02:51But honestly, more than anything else, I'm tired, tired, tired.
02:54She told us that her town was hit around 30 times in the war in 2024, and it's been hit
03:00three times by Israeli airstrikes this time around.
03:03So more than anything, she's feeling tired.
03:06And as you can see behind me, lots of families here, families who couldn't get a place at the shelters
03:11or who would have had to have been split up in order to be inside a shelter,
03:14have decided to stay together and they're camping out in the streets.
03:17And of course, these children uprooted, not in school either.
03:21That's something that people here are concerned about, is that how long will this displacement go on for and how
03:25long will their children be out of school and how long will they be living in the streets?
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