Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is alarmed by the dramatic escalation in conflict across the Middle East, following strikes by US and Israeli forces in Iran and Iran’s subsequent retaliatory actions in several countries.
Across the region, the escalation in violence has brought fear to the lives of millions of people, including in Lebanon, Iran, and the Gulf countries. Bombing continues across multiple cities and villages, often hitting densely populated areas, and casualties are mounting. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee.
MSF calls for the protection of civilians, hospitals, health facilities, and other essential infrastructure.
Our teams are adapting our programmes and/or preparing to respond in different countries. We are closely monitoring the rapidly evolving humanitarian needs.
How is MSF responding in the Middle East?
In Lebanon, MSF teams are working in seven of the country’s eight governorates, adjusting and responding to urgent needs. Our teams are running mobile units, supporting shelters for displaced people, distributing essential items and water. We are also assessing medical activities for trauma cases.
Across Lebanon, MSF has set up 12 mobile clinics in the southern city of Saida, in Mount Lebanon, Beirut, Bekaa, and the north. Mobile clinics provide general healthcare consultations, in addition to consultations for sexual and reproductive healthcare and mental health needs. Up until 12 March, our teams had provided 2,610 medical consultations, 440 sexual and reproductive health consultations, and 940 mental health sessions.
We are also trucking and providing water in Beirut, and distributing essential relief (non-food) items, such as blankets and hygiene kits, in Beirut, Mount Lebanon, South, and Baalbek-Hermel governorates.
As of 12 March, we’d provided 76,100 litres of drinking water.
We are scaling up our support – via donations of medical supplies and providing trauma care – to hospitals and healthcare centres. We’ve also launched mental health helplines to support distressed people in remote or hard-to-access areas.
In Nabatiyeh governorate, MSF has had to suspend activities due to evacuation orders issued by Israel, and the lack of security guarantees for staff. However, MSF teams continue to look into avenues of providing support in the area. We continue to run our clinics in Bourj Hammoud in Beirut and in Arsal in Baalbek-Hermel governorate, and to support healthcare centres in Tripoli.
MSF remains in contact with Lebanese authorities and other organisations and is ready to continue scaling up our response as required.
This recent escalation is part of an ongoing pattern of attacks, despite the November 2024 “ceasefire agreement” between Israel and Lebanon, following the Israeli bombardments and ground incursion in Lebanon in September that year. However, the agreement has never since brought real safety to people in Lebanon. Daily strikes from the Israeli forces, killed 370 people between when the “ceasefire” began in November 2024, and 2 March 2026.
In this latest escalation, over 800,000 people – and likely many more – have been displaced. The latest strikes and sweeping evacuation orders are forcing even more people to flee with nowhere safe to go.
The Israeli army has issued blanket evacuation orders for more hundreds of towns and villages south of the Litani River, plus southern Beirut, and parts of the Bekaa valley in eastern Beirut. These evacuation orders collectively cover 14 per cent of Lebanon’s area.
Many people have already been displaced multiple times during previous escalations. Shelters are now overcrowded, with some people sleeping in their cars or on the streets. Others have remained in their homes despite evacuation orders, or returned due to a lack of space in shelters or lack of means to rent accommodation.
Hospitals are receiving casualties, and humanitarian needs are increasing rapidly, including the need for water and essential items, especially in shelters.
Before 28 February, when the escalation began, MSF had been running three projects in Iran. In South Tehran, we run a project providing essential healthcare to people engaged in sex work and people who use drugs, plus migrants and refugees. Our clinic in Tehran is temporarily closed due to heavy bombing.
In Mashhad, near the Afghan border, our teams provide medical and psychological consultations, and screening for infectious diseases, for Afghan refugees. In Kerman province, MSF is the only medical organisation providing direct healthcare services to Afghan refugees. Our clinics in Mashhad and Kerman are still open, albeit operating with reduced staff.
Our teams are seeking authorisation from authorities to scale up emergency care support in response to conflict-related needs – including opening our clinics 24/7 and supporting the local health system – and are awaiting a response.
Receiving information from our staff in Iran is extremely difficult due to the communication blackout. In addition, airstrikes have created operational challenges, although we have so far been able to continue some activities, albeit with reduced staff numbers.
In Iraq, MSF has medical supplies available to be used or distributed in the region if needed.
"No matter where I go, I will always be a daughter of the South!"
Families face uncertainty under bombardment and new evacuation orders in Lebanon
