The war that drove Mayyada and her two young daughters from southern Lebanon last year continues to cast shadows on every part of their life in Beirut. They fled in September 2024. They hoped the distance they travelled would quiet the nightly explosions and the roar of warplanes near Hezbollah strongholds. But the sounds of war have not subdued.
The family now lives in a single small room in the capital. The cramped quarters, Mayyada says, are manageable. The fear is not.
“Any sudden sound — a plate dropping or even a loud laugh — terrifies them,” she told Alhurra. “The bangs we ran away from have chased us to here, and the fear that it could all happen again never leaves us.”
Her sister faced a similar ordeal. She and her four children fled their apartment in Beirut’s southern suburb after receiving a direct warning from the Israeli army that the building would be hit. “We were utterly terrified when we made our escape,” Mayyada recalled.
The psychological toll, she added, lingers: “They lost the home they grew up in. They live with constant insecurity and relentless nightmares.”
A Cycle of Trauma
Experts say the children’s reactions are neither unusual nor transient. “In war, children don’t experience one trauma — they experience a chain of traumas,” said child psychologist and social worker Lana Qassqas, who heads the “Key to Life” association. “A child does not return to zero, even when the fighting stops.”
The brain, she said, “rebuilds itself under stress,” reshaping emotions and behavior. Small shocks accumulate into larger wounds that impair learning, worldview, and the ability to form stable relationships.
Qassqas lists warning signs: sleep disorders, bed-wetting, extreme attachment, fear of ordinary sounds, regression in behavior, isolation, sudden aggression, and loss of concentration. If untreated, she said, these can develop into chronic anxiety, depression or psychosomatic pain.
Parents, however, are often struggling themselves. “They are the emotional organizers in their children’s lives,” Qassqas said. “When parents are overwhelmed by fear and confusion, the child’s last source of safety collapses.”
Sociologist and university professor Wadiah Al-Amyouni said war alters a child’s understanding of the world. “A child who witnesses destruction or displacement experiences a collapse of the concepts of safety and stability,” she said. “Family relationships are severely impacted because parents themselves are under psychological pressure.”
That sense of rupture extends into the wider community. Children may withdraw or become aggressive, she said. “War creates a deep fissure in a child’s consciousness before it destroys walls.”
A Generation at Risk
For many parents, the trauma is visible every day.
Hadi, whose eight-year-old son fled with him last year, said the boy reacts to any loud noise as if danger is upon us. “He screams or runs to hide under the table,” he said.
Experts warn that childhood fear has long-term consequences. “Children who grow up engulfed with fear rarely become secure adults,” Qassqas said. “They grow into citizens searching for missing safety — or power, or a way out of the country. Childhood trauma becomes the seed that shapes society for decades.”
Al-Amyouni added that a generation raised on instability struggles to build trust-based relationships. She says, many grow up believing the world is unsafe and relationships are fragile, and, therefore, friendships, marriages, and broader social cohesion are deeply impacted.
Global Numbers Paint a Grim Picture
The crisis in Lebanon is part of a wider global pattern. UNICEF’s December warning described one of the darkest periods for children in conflict zones in decades. More than 473 million children live in conflict areas worldwide. In the Middle East and North Africa, at least 12.2 million children have been killed, injured, or displaced in less than two years — the equivalent of one child displaced every five seconds, and one killed or injured every 15 minutes.
Grave violations against children reached a record 41,370 cases in 2024, a 25 percent rise from the previous year, according to a June 2025 UN report. Those violations include killing and maiming, recruitment, sexual violence, abduction, attacks on schools and hospitals, and the blocking of humanitarian aid.
The future of education is equally bleak: 30 million children in the region are out of school. Sudan accounts for nearly half, with 14 million children outside classrooms due to epidemics, hunger and floods. In Gaza, 645,000 children have been out of school entirely since 2023, with 84 percent of schools needing reconstruction or major repairs.
Lebanon’s toll remains heavy even months into the cease-fire. The UN said that since the war erupted in September 2024, more than 300 children have been killed and about 1,500 injured. Even after the cease-fire, at least 13 more were killed.
Many children sustained horrific injuries, from burns and amputations to brain trauma. Others face deep psychological wounds.
“War in Lebanon has stolen children’s childhood, their futures, and their lives,” UNICEF’s Lebanon representative Ettore Marchetti-Corsi said.
A Warning for Lebanon’s Future
The consequences extend far beyond individual families. “Losing access to education doesn’t just destroy a chance to gain knowledge,” Qassqas said. “It opens the door to early labor, early marriage, and deeper trauma.” Every child pulled out of school, she added, is “a loss for the entire country — higher unemployment, lower productivity, more poverty, and fewer skills for national recovery.”
Al-Amyouni warned that untreated trauma reproduces itself across generations. “Countries that ignore children’s trauma recreate their own tragedies,” she said. “They produce adults who are psychologically unstable, less trusting of the state, and more likely to migrate or turn to violence.”
Both experts emphasized that supporting children requires safe environments, steady education, accessible psychological care, and real assistance for parents. Rehabilitation, they said, is a long-term project, and not a short-term medical intervention.
“Mental health care for children is a building block for any country trying to move beyond its wars,” Qassqas said. “The future of a nation is written on the faces of the children walking to school carrying an invisible burden of fear.”
