Shelter centers, which are supposed to serve as the final refuge for civilians during war, are no longer beyond danger. Images emerging from Gaza, where displacement shelters were bombed or placed within targeting zones, have reignited fundamental questions about the fragility of spaces that are supposedly the safest. Between the protections guaranteed to civilians under international law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and what is actually happening on the ground, a harsh gap continues to widen.
The Convention clearly distinguishes between civilians and combatants and grants protection to all those not directly participating in hostilities, while civilian status must prevail in cases of doubt. This protection also extends to medical personnel, humanitarian workers, journalists, and civil defense teams. Yet these legal guarantees often appear incapable of protecting those who sought survival inside schools and public shelters. As a result, places of refuge are transformed from spaces of safety into sources of constant fear, making the question even more urgent: who protects civilians when the shelter itself becomes a target?
Evacuation Under Pressure: Field Confusion and Lack of Planning
On the ground, reality reflects the scale of the challenge. H.G., a field coordinator working on displacement issues, says that evacuation operations from shelter centers during periods of threat were marked by significant confusion, particularly in densely populated and critical areas such as Kfarta and Basta in western Beirut. He explains that evacuations in these areas placed enormous pressure on residents due to the absence of a clear plan capable of managing such large-scale movement. He adds: “The lack of prior preparedness placed the burden directly on people and the responsible authorities.”
The issue was not limited to these two cases. With threats extending to Ouzai, Jnah, and Bir Hassan, authorities were forced to evacuate a large number of schools being used as shelter centers. He explains that transferring displaced people from Jnah to Bir Hassan intensified pressure on that area, further complicating response efforts.
Around 40 schools were prepared to receive displaced people, but this rapid expansion was not enough to overcome the challenges.
In response, H.G. notes that the state and the Ministry of Social Affairs opened additional schools in western Beirut, preparing approximately 40 schools to host displaced people. However, this rapid expansion was insufficient to resolve the challenges, as problems quickly emerged regarding capacity, shortages in basic equipment and supplies, and significant disparities between schools’ capabilities.
H.G. continues: “The shortage of space and equipment, combined with the varying capacities of schools, created a state of operational confusion.” He also points out that the official response, despite its importance, came relatively late, only after the situation had reached a critical stage in which many displaced families had already been forced onto the streets before alternative solutions were found.
As the level of threat subsided after several days, some displaced people returned to the centers where they had previously been staying. This reflects the temporary and improvised nature of these measures and raises serious questions about the preparedness of evacuation plans during emergencies.
International Law: Clear Protection, Absent Enforcement
From a legal perspective, lawyer Maysoun Ismail emphasizes that protecting civilians during armed conflict is not optional, but a fundamental obligation imposed by international humanitarian law. This obligation is grounded in an integrated legal framework that includes the Geneva Conventions, numerous international treaties, and customary international law.
She explains that civilians, including displaced people residing in shelter centers, enjoy dual legal protection derived from both international humanitarian law and international human rights law. This protection is primarily based on the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, whose Article 13 states that all civilian populations are protected without discrimination.
She adds that this protection extends not only to individuals but also to civilian objects, including shelter centers, particularly when these shelters are located within schools or civilian buildings. In this context, Article 53 of the same Convention prohibits the destruction of civilian property, making attacks against displacement centers or damage inflicted upon them a clear violation of international law.
Forced displacement itself is prohibited under Article 49 of the Convention,
further reinforcing the responsibility to protect displaced people and provide them with safe shelter.
She further notes that any attack on shelter centers affects not only infrastructure but also directly threatens civilian safety, something explicitly prohibited under Article 32 of the Convention.
Within this framework, such violations fall under the category of war crimes according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, particularly in cases involving deliberate attacks against civilians or civilian objects, or disproportionate attacks causing excessive civilian harm. Attacks on schools, even when used as shelters, are considered especially grave because educational institutions are granted special protection under international law.
Ismail points out that Lebanon’s non-membership in the Rome Statute does not negate the criminal nature of these acts; it merely limits international prosecution mechanisms, which remain dependent on referrals by the United Nations Security Council or special acceptance by the concerned state. Nevertheless, she stresses that these violations remain classified as war crimes under international law regardless of the available accountability mechanisms.
In this context, what happened in Gaza is no longer viewed as a distant case, but rather as a mirror reflecting fears that the same scenario could be repeated in Lebanon, where merely declaring a place “safe” does not necessarily make it truly safe. In the absence of clear preventive planning and adequately prepared alternatives, civilians remain trapped in a cycle of forced movement from one danger to another, without any real guarantees of protection.
