Oftentimes, triggers for civil wars are over non-political disputes between different segments of a tense society. Here is one example. Israel and the US are pushing the Lebanese into a civil war by creating untenable conditions as a result of the ethnic cleansing Israel is perperating in the south of the country.
Millions of refugees have swarmed the rest of the country and are settling in schools, government buildings, residential buildings, churches, along large uninhabited avenues, and other public and semi-public spaces. This initially does not cause problems as people try to help as best as they can. But the outlook of this new war is a permanent displacement of refugees: In prior wars, they ultimately returned to their homes and villages, but it is unlikely to be the case this time around. And that "permanence" is driving the hosts who at first welcomed their guests to panic.
The Lebanese have been through this before with the influx of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in 1948 after the Zionist rape of Palestine. The terror the Zionists unleashed on Palestinian villages and towns - just like what they are doing now in the West Bank - drove terrorized villagers and town dwellers out of their country across the borders with Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. In Lebanon, the Palestinian refugees initially settled in tent camps near the border. But as the months and years went by, they moved into urban areas in improvised but permanent camps wherever there were empty lots of land (usually belonging to religious orders or to the government). These camps literally became small towns crammed between neighborhoods.
When the war erupted in 1975 between the Lebanese and the Palestinians, these camps became fortified military bastions loaded with weapons and from which the Palestinians began harassing the local population with sniping, kidnapping, setting up checkpoints and frequently killing passers-by. The Lebanese people revolted in the face of a paralyzed government, created their own militias and besieged the camps and ultimately overran them and chased the Palestinians out of their neighborhoods.
The present is looking, strangely, like the past. This time the refugees, driven from the south by a very skillful Israeli ethnic cleansing, are mostly Shiite Muslims backers of Hezbollah, have found shelter all over the place. The government is again paralyzed between US pressure and fear of civil unrest. As time goes by, the local residents who initially welcomed their fellow citizens will begin to feel the weight of permanence. Just like the Palestinian refugees were in the custody of the heavily armed PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), the Shiite refugees from the south are in the hands of heavily armed Hezbollah. A dispute over anything - a school, a park, a parking space, an apartment in a buidling...- could become the match that lights up the fire.
The Israelis are terrified of putting soldiers on the ground, wary as they are of such a high-casualty scenario. They keep bombing every which way from the air, but this never really solves the problem. And so, both Israel and the US are pushing the Lebanese government into shoving its army (majority Shiite Muslim, mind you) into an impossible confrontation with Shiite Muslim Hezbollah. But the government is resisting, so far at least, because it doesn't want to, and also because it does not have the military capability to defeat Hezbollah. If such a confrontation were to occur, the army would immediately split along sectarian lines - all it takes is for Hezbollah to order the Shiite soldiers of the Lebanese army to jump ship and join its ranks.
This is exactly what happened in 1975 when the Lebanese Sunni Muslims were the seditious allies of the Palestinians against their own Lebanese government. Lieutenant Ahmad Al-Khatib, a Sunni Mulsim of the Lebanese army and operating on behalf of Syria, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab countries allied with the PLO, deserted and created his own Arab Army of Lebanon. He called on Sunni soldiers to desert the regular army and join him, which they did and proceeded to attack regular army barracks across the country.
In addition, local residents abutting the Palestinian camps saw their lives upended by these camps now operating as military bases. It took one heavily armed Palestinian bus driving through a Christian neighborhood of Beirut, two hours after an assassination attempt against a Christian leader inaugurating a church in that neighborhood, and the war erupted in April 1975. I refuse to call that 1975 war a "civil" war because it was primarily betwen the Lebanese and the Palestinians, the latter supported financially and militarily by every other Sunni Arab country (Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt, etc.) and also by an implicit western and American indifference that did not want to upset these oil-embargoing Arab states.
We are at a very similar inflexion point with the difference that the Sunnis in Lebanon and across the Middle East are US allies now, and togteher they oppose Iran and its Shiite militia Hezbollah. All that is needed is a match, and that match could be a dispute over a school just like the one below. Will the Lebanese learn from 1975? No one knows. I suspect not.
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Protests erupt in Lebanon after displaced Shia community refuses to leave private school grounds
DANIELLE GREYMAN-KENNARD
Sun, May 3, 2026
Lebanese displaced by nearly two months of war between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia continue to live in makeshift tents and shelters in the Biel open space near the shore, on April 27, 2026, in Beirut, Lebanon. (photo credit: Scott Peterson/Getty Images)
Displaced families in Lebanon have taken over a school in Beirut, leading to protests from teachers and parents.
Parents at the school claimed the displaced individuals forced their way into the school, some hinting that Hezbollah arranged to take the educational institute by force.
Teachers, parents, and staff held a sit-in protest at the Rafic Hariri Second High School in Beirut after displaced individuals temporarily housed there refused to relocate from the school's premises, Lebanese media reported on Thursday.
The school has been closed since March 2, and its premises have been used to house hundreds of Shia families relocated from southern Lebanon.
Around 1.1 million, 20% of Lebanon’s total population, was displaced when Hezbollah dragged the country back into war with Israel following the targeted assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to data published by UNICEF on Saturday.
Displaced families were reportedly received “by force and without the consent of the administration, with the support of armed elements who continue to guard the entrance to prevent the school administration from accessing it,” a source told L’Orient Today, without explicitly naming Hezbollah.
One parent commented on the school’s Facebook page, “We raise our voice to demand our fundamental right to education. We emphasize the need for immediate return to our school.
Lebanese displaced by nearly two months of war between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia continue to live in makeshift tents and shelters in the Biel open space near the shore, on April 27, 2026, in Beirut, Lebanon. (credit: Scott Peterson/Getty Images)
"We also demand that the school be evacuated immediately from any occupation that prevents the normal resumption of the school year. Our children are not numbers, and their futures are not postponed. School is a right, education is a priority, and the dignity of students is not neglected.”
Another mother was recorded complaining, “What exactly happened? How did the school turn into a Husseiniya (a Shiite religious gathering place)? During Ramadan, there were religious lessons or mourning gatherings; I’m not sure where they brought in reciters.
"We rejected this, and thanks to the officials we contacted, it stopped. Now there is partitioning of classrooms, rooms inside the school are being rented out, and even the parking lot is being rented. We can no longer enter unless we get their permission to access our own school.”
Children forced to change schools
She complained that many parents had been forced to withdraw their children from the school and send them to alternative institutions.
“I don’t know how it turned into a shelter, and even a centralized one. They entered it under arms. Not with our consent, at 4 a.m., they broke down and smashed the school doors and stormed in, without permission or request, under threat of weapons. Now we no longer even know - is it a shelter, or some kind of headquarters?” she continued.
Hezbollah MP Amin Sherri denied that Hezbollah occupied the school by force, telling local outlets that “All reception centers were selected in coordination with the emergency committee under the Office of the Prime Minister.”
Adding to the resentment, the Rafic Harari Second High School has become a site of sectarian divisions, according to the Lebanese media outlets L’Orient Today and El Nashra. There was reportedly outrage when a hijab ceremony, celebrating the transition young girls make to wearing the head covering, included partisan flags and slogans.
“We have nothing against the displaced people or against religious duties, but holding this ceremony with elaborate decorations and partisan flags has nothing to do with displacement anymore, and has become a real provocation for the displaced students and their parents,” a mother told L’Orient-Le Jour on condition of anonymity.
While photos posted online showed no Hezbollah posters were present at the ceremony, the organizers flew the flag of the Hezbollah-linked Mahdi Scouts.
Iran created the Imam Al-Mahdi Scouts Association, a youth movement that aims to train youth to take part in the fight against Israel and to instill in them radical Shiite Islamic ideology, in 1985. Many of the youth involved in the scouts go on to join Hezbollah as suicide bombers, according to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.
Nir Boms, a research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University and at the International Center for Counterterrorism, told The Jerusalem Post that the unrest at the school is just the latest issue as Lebanon grapples with its identity.
Based on a confessional system, there is a “thin balance” in keeping the country unity, a balance that is being shaken by Hezbollah and its supporters taking space in territories uninterested in paying the price of a costly and unnecessary war, he explained.
The displaced supporters of Hezbollah are trying to push the narrative that being against the institutional takeovers is threatening Lebanon’s unity and is a sign of standing with Israel, he continued, adding that he had spoken to a number of Lebanese individuals of all religious sects recently who complained of provocations and escalating sectarian division.
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