By Rachel Saliba, Maria Maalouf, Cyrine Saab, Maha Shuayb, Cathrine Brun, Ghada Jouny, Siham Antoun

Following the major escalation of the renewed Israeli aggression on Lebanon on 2 March 2026, the attacks spread across much of Lebanon, displacing more than 1.3 million people, resulting in more than 3,185 martyrs and 9,633 injured, and more than 127,714 people are still displaced and unable to return home (as of 26 May 2026). The effects on education were immediate and far-reaching: 300,000 out of 1.1 million Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian students were displaced, 61% of children were enrolled in schools affected by war, and 550 of the country’s 1,228 public schools were converted into shelters, underscoring how schools were rapidly repurposed as central infrastructures of the emergency response. As of 6 May 2026, only 54.8% of AM-shift public schools and 48.7% of PM-shift schools serving Syrian refugee students had resumed in-person or hybrid learning, highlighting the sharper disruption in the second-shift system. This study examines how the Israeli 2026 war on Lebanon reshaped access to, continuity of, and experiences of education in Lebanon within a broader context of compounded crises, institutional fragility, and deepening inequality.

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