U.N. officials said on Friday most of Lebanon's nearly 900 shelters were full and that people fleeing Israeli military strikes were increasingly sleeping out in the open on the street or in public parks.
"Most of the nearly 900 government-established collective shelters in Lebanon have no more capacity," the U.N. refugee agency's Rula Amin told a Geneva press briefing.
She said that they were working with local authorities to find more sites and that in the meantime some hotels and even Beirut nightclubs were opening their doors.
Lebanese authorities say over 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced and nearly 2,000 people killed since the resurgence of Israel's conflict with Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group over the last year, most of them within the past two weeks.
"Roads are jammed with traffic, people are sleeping in public parks, on the street, the beach," said Mathieu Luciano, the International Organization for Migration's office head in Lebanon.
He confirmed that most shelters were full, including those in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, but said some others still had space. Many of the current shelters are schools, he said, meaning disruptions to education.
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