{"id":775826,"date":"2026-09-19T13:48:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T13:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/775826\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T13:48:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T13:48:30","slug":"life-on-the-edge-in-lebanon-the-psychological-toll-of-living-along-israels-yellow-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/775826\/","title":{"rendered":"Life on the edge in Lebanon: The psychological toll of living along Israel’s ‘Yellow Line’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mariam Ismail Ballout sat at the entrance of a mobile medical clinic in Ghandouriyeh in south Lebanon<\/a>, waiting to speak to a doctor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Outside the clinic, most of the surrounding homes in the small hilltop village, a strategic position Israel<\/a> previously<\/a> tried to occupy, have either been severely damaged or completely flattened by strikes earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll our houses are ruined, all our houses are on the ground, demolished,\u201d the 66-year-old told Middle East Eye while waiting to collect her medicine.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy house burned down, meaning there’s no washing machine, no refrigerator, nothing. There’s no gas, nothing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She paused, suddenly overwhelmed with tears.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Located just south of Froun, one of the designated \u201cpilot zones\u201d<\/a> established in Lebanon\u2019s Nabatieh governorate, Ghandouriyeh sits just outside of Israel\u2019s imposed \u201cYellow Line\u201d.<\/a> But the situation here is far from stable.<\/p>\n

A rolling green valley known as Wadi al-Hujeir divides the village from a direct line of sight of the Israeli military presence on the other side. A large plastic bin surrounded by rocks, signposted with the warning of \u201cenemy\u201d beyond in Arabic, is all that separates the outskirts of the town from now-inaccessible roads ahead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Roughly 228 families have returned to their homes in Ghandouriyeh despite the quiet village lacking any running water or electricity, said mayor Mohammed Ali Nader. Many had few options other than to live among the shells of their homes and share buildings with neighbours, as they cannot afford to rent elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There has not been a direct strike on the village in \u201cmonths\u201d the mayor told MEE, but residents here live in a constant state of high alert that medical specialists warn is having a profound impact on people\u2019s mental health.<\/p>\n

Critical lifeline<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people with no history of previous mental health disorders are now having symptoms of mental health disorders,\u201d Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) counsellor and clinical psychologist Almas Al Andary, 33, told MEE from the mobile clinic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

MSF runs daily mobile medical units across parts of south Lebanon, serving as a critical lifeline for villages often left with little access to nearby healthcare.<\/p>\n

\u2018We definitely see a lot of people having acute stress disorders. And these symptoms we can’t formally diagnose because the crisis is still ongoing\u2019<\/p>\n

–\u00a0Almas Al Andary, MSF psychologist<\/p>\n

According to the organisation\u2019s records, counsellors have held 1,326 individual mental health sessions in southern Lebanon since the war<\/a> started on 2 March, with teams confirming requests for psychological support across the region are \u201cincreasing chronically\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Ballout arrived at the MSF clinic in Ghandouriyeh on 28 August, the persistent whirr of an Israeli drone was hanging over the village, a sound that residents say has become a near-daily occurrence here.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m afraid of the drones,\u201d the grandmother of 14 told MEE. Often, residents hear the buzzing sound but are unable to actually see the drones watching them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On this particular day, only three people attended the clinic while MEE was on the ground, which medical staff say was unusually low. Yet of those who did attend, two were new patients seeking mental health support.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cToday the number decreased because yesterday there were air strikes and people fled again from this area,\u201d Al Andary said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The psychologist explained that a lot of mental health cases she has recently supported have been prompted by this year\u2019s conflict, as well as the ongoing threat of instability and displacement, the loss of homes, livelihoods and loved ones.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite a US-brokered ceasefire announced this June in Lebanon, Israel continues to fire beyond the yellow line into districts including Nabatieh and Tyre, claiming dozens of lives.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n

In south Lebanon, Israeli drones use the sound of crying children to lure civilians<\/p>\n

Read More \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n

The Lebanese Army last week confirmed<\/a> it had \u201cintensified operations\u201d in southern areas currently not under occupation amid signs of escalating tensions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely see a lot of people having acute stress disorders. And these symptoms we can’t formally diagnose because the crisis is still ongoing,\u201d Al Andary explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe find these symptoms where people are having intense responses to the drones or the air strikes, like tension, like hypervigilance, fear, constant worry.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Embrace<\/a>, a Lebanese mental health non-profit operating the country\u2019s National Lifeline, revealed<\/a> that call volume was 55 percent higher during the 2026 war compared to the 2024 conflict.<\/p>\n

Yet little public data exists about the ongoing mental health situation in southern Lebanon amid fragile\u00a0\u201cceasefire\u201d conditions. On the ground, though, the reality is stark.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are not sleeping well; there are a lot of sleep disorders, which are causing a lot of stress for them and causing a lot of them to take medications related to sleeping and to mental health conditions,\u201d community health educator Farah Kerbaj told MEE.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Medics such as the MSF\u2019s midwife Reem Farhat say patients are often \u201cvery agitated\u201d.<\/p>\n

Stigma surrounding mental health and difficulty tracking data among displaced families may be compounding the situation.<\/p>\n

Always ready to flee<\/p>\n

Outside the municipal building where the MSF clinic is hosted, Ghandouriyeh\u2019s mayor told MEE the village’s most urgent need is access to water; without it, people cannot grow enough food to eat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But many families also appear ready to flee at a moment\u2019s notice – a symptom likened to the hypervigilance that Al Andary describes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018We’re fed up, honestly. We’re fed up with wars; we’ve had enough wars<\/p>\n

– Mohammed Gannem, resident<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people are coming back here,\u201d Nader explains. \u201cBut any attack, they come running, they sit down in the valley at the intersection of the riverbank until the situation calms down.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Standing just outside the medical clinic, local resident Mohammed Gannem returned to the town with his family in June, relieved to find his home was still there, but still struggling: \u201cYesterday we didn’t sleep,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re fed up, honestly,\u201d he told MEE. \u201cWe’re fed up with wars; we’ve had enough wars.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He is also concerned about the psychological impact the situation is having on his two daughters. His youngest is almost two, and \u201cshe’s become accustomed to the booming sound, and now when she hears booming, she gets scared\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Explanations about an increase in patients looking for psychological support may be twofold: people are potentially becoming more aware of mental health support in Lebanon and breaking away from former stigma, medics suggest, but also becoming more desperate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking from Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs where MSF was hosting another mobile clinic, counsellor Georges Jreij explains they see mental health cases in waves, one of which they\u2019re expecting around the six-month mark of the war this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n

Israel uses Lebanese civilians as bargaining chips<\/p>\n

Read More \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s usually the time it takes for the brain to really realise the situation, to be able to think about the stuff that people are going through,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the central nervous system sort of calms down in these periods, so other sides of the brain are reactivated.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the Ghandouriyeh health clinic session neared its end, another unexpected sound disrupted the town and briefly drowned out the drones above.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A pale pink ice-cream van with a smashed windscreen slowly meandered past the rubble of homes, a rare hint of normalcy ringing out in playful jingles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But as the sound of the ice-cream van slowly faded across the hilltops, it was replaced once again with a menacing buzz of drones.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mariam Ismail Ballout sat at the entrance of a mobile medical clinic in Ghandouriyeh in south Lebanon, waiting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-775826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}