Lebanon13 September, 20263 min read
Israel’s Attacks Force Lebanon’s Froun School to Reopen as Shelter for Displaced People
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Froun school doubles as shelter for displaced Lebanon villagers amid Israeli strikes. Displacement peaked over 1.2 million, now about 330,000 per IOM estimates.
8 outlets told this the same way.
Schools as shelters
In Froun, Lebanon, Abbas Makki, the principal of a school in the village of Froun in southern Lebanon, prepared for the return of students to his school, which was also doubling as a centre for displaced people. Makki said the school reopened on the first day after a US-declared June truce was announced between Lebanon and Israel, and he said, "We will reopen the school [for students], but will not abandon the displaced people." Local officials said most of Froun still had no state-provided water or electricity, and Al Jazeera reported that piles of concrete rubble remained where homes once stood after locals returned following the framework agreement.
“‘We will reopen the school [for students], but will not abandon the displaced people,’ Makki said.”
The public school year was set to start on Tuesday, September 15 in Lebanon, and a local official told Al Jazeera that the Lebanese government had also set that day as a goal for restoring water and electricity to Froun. UNESCO’s Maysoun Chehab said, "A school cannot function simultaneously as a proper shelter and a normal learning environment," as Israel’s attacks in recent days drove some people back from their homes.
Mansouri school threatened
In Tyre district’s South Lebanon, libnanews reported that the Mansouri public school was directly threatened after a new Israeli operation on Wednesday 9 September, when a small Israeli telepilot aircraft dropped explosive materials on the building’s roof. The incident came a few days from the school year scheduled for 15 September, and libnanews said the mixed school had 336 students according to data from the Centre for Educational Research and Development (CRDP). libnanews reported that the alert occurred in the morning of Wednesday and that several Lebanese media said a small Israeli remotely piloted aircraft deposited explosive materials directly on the roof of Mansuri’s intermediate public school.
The report said no students were reported at the time of the incident, and it described the school as an essential infrastructure for the families of Mansouri in a locality where population movements had increased. libnanews added that the Mansouri public school had already been directly affected on 17 November 2025, when the Lebanese Ministry of Education announced the death of its director, Mohammad Shueikh, after his vehicle was targeted by a gunshot fired from an Israeli drone.
Strains and uncertainty
NOW reported that Lebanon’s education sector entered a new school year under strains, with some schools ready to receive students, others requiring rehabilitation, and others destroyed or still being used as shelters by displaced families. NOW said Lebanon’s Ministry of Education had not provided updated information on how many schools remained occupied, damaged, or unable to reopen, and it said the ministry had not explained what concrete measures were being taken before September 15. UNESCO Beirut’s Assem Abi Ali told NOW that the first and most important challenge was "ensuring a safe and regular return to education for all children," particularly those living in areas affected by the recent crisis.
Abi Ali said around 35,000 students remained in areas where schools were unlikely to be available to them, and he said around 285 schools were identified as requiring partial rehabilitation, recommissioning, or other forms of "soft rehabilitation" before they could reopen. NOW also quoted a Ministry of Social Affairs source saying, "There are no safe places because the state does not have an alternative plan," as displaced families remained in some schools and authorities faced the question of where families would go when schools needed to reopen.