It was the first time Mariam Nasereddine had seen her friend\u2019s newborn twins. The pair, just four days old, were lying in a plastic bread crate \u2013 a makeshift cot their mother had created.<\/p>\n
For weeks, the family has been sleeping on the floor in a school classroom in Mount Lebanon<\/a>, filled with other families displaced by Israel\u2019s attacks on the country.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I saw them in that crate, I just started crying,\u201d says Nasereddine, who lives in Sydney, as she recalls the video call with her friend.<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t look at them. It was too much.\u201d<\/p>\n Nasereddine is among members of Australia\u2019s Lebanese diaspora facing a worsening psychological toll as the Israeli military invasion of the country intensifies.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s defence minister, Israel Katz, this week said its army would occupy swathes of south Lebanon<\/a> and destroy homes along the border, prompting concerns of long-term forced displacement. Katz drew a comparison to Gaza, where Israel\u2019s military razed most homes in the territory\u2019s neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n More than a million people have been displaced by Israel\u2019s invasion of Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities. The death toll has surpassed 1,200, including more than 120 children, the Lebanese health ministry said.<\/p>\n With much of Lebanon\u2019s south populated by the Shia Muslim community, their relatives in Australia have expressed helplessness and grief as they watch on in horror.<\/p>\n Nasereddine, who first moved to Australia from her home country in 1990, wakes each day and immediately checks the news. She searches through the names listed as part of a growing death toll.<\/p>\n Last month, three of her friends and their families were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Beirut.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery single moment of that terrifying ongoing attack on Lebanon is just eating me up,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m not sleeping, well, I\u2019m not eating. I cry easily \u2026 I\u2019m in a constant worry.\u201d<\/p>\n Israel launched a military campaign in Lebanon<\/a> shortly after Lebanon-based military group Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel on 2 March in retaliation for the US-Israel\u2019s assassination of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a>. But areas of the south have been subjected to continuous Israeli military action since 2023.<\/p>\n Thousands of displaced Lebanese civilians are living in temporary camps such as this one in the capital of Beirut. Photograph: Raghed Waked\/Reuters<\/p>\n In January, Nasereddine\u2019s heavily pregnant friend was forced to evacuate from her family\u2019s home in Aitaroun.<\/p>\n They later relocated to Mount Lebanon because schools in the capital were overflowing with displaced civilians.<\/p>\n