Displaced families in Lebanon yearn for peace and a return home

"This should be a place where children go to learn, to play, to spend time together. And yet, in the past few weeks, this has become a makeshift shelter for 1,200 people displaced from other parts of Lebanon that are currently affected by the conflict," Grandi said.

"We need of course to provide people that are stranded in locations like this school with the basics: food, cash, water and sanitation, and items for everyday survival," he added. "But most of all, we need this situation to stop. What is needed in this country, first and foremost, is a ceasefire … so that all the people that are displaced and all those that are affected can resume their normal lives."

Since the start of intensified Israeli airstrikes on 23 September, teams from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, have been supporting the government's response efforts. Staff are delivering emergency items including blankets, mattresses and medical trauma kits, and equipping many of the 900 temporary shelters opened by the authorities in schools and other public buildings to house displaced families.

In addition to the 1.2 million people estimated by the government to have fled their homes, between 200,000 and 300,000 people have crossed the border from Lebanon into Syria to escape the airstrikes, including Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinian refugees.

Just across town in the Barbir neighbourhood of the capital, Shaza Faris is a 59-year-old Syrian refugee who has lived in Lebanon since fleeing Damascus in 2013. She and her extended family are now crammed into her brother's small three-roomed apartment along with his wife and four children after fleeing their home in Beirut's southern suburbs amid heavy airstrikes two weeks ago.

"There was no time to take any decisions. As soon as the strike started, we fled," Shaza said. "My granddaughters are 9, 7 and 3 years old. They started crying and screaming. The eldest said: 'Get us out of the war. There's war here and we don't want to stay'."