Israel began bombing southern Lebanon on March 2 after Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel for the first time in at least a year, triggering a food security crisis and mass displacement that has disproportionately affected the country's migrant worker population. Hezbollah said the rockets were in response to the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28 and what it described as 15 months of unanswered Israeli aggression including more than 10,000 ceasefire violations.

Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon and occupied several towns and villages, displacing at least one million people across the country, including from the south and Beirut's southern suburbs. A ceasefire has not calmed the situation. The conflict has disrupted supplies of goods and pushed up prices, with the cost of vegetables rising more than 20% and bread increasing 17% since March 2.

"What we're witnessing is not just a displacement crisis, it is rapidly becoming a food security crisis." World Food Programme country director Allison Oman said more than 80% of markets in southern Lebanon are no longer functioning, markets in Beirut are under increasing strain, and many traders in conflict-affected areas reported less than one week of essential food stocks remaining.

About 900,000 people across Lebanon were already facing food insecurity before the latest escalation, and that number is set to rise, Oman said. "This escalation is pushing vulnerable communities even closer to the edge," she added. The Lebanese Ministry of Economy and Trade said the country's national food stocks are sufficient for three to four months and that supply chains and import-export operations are functioning normally at ports and land crossings.

Delivering food aid into hard-to-reach areas in southern Lebanon has become increasingly difficult. Ten WFP convoys have reached the south to provide aid to an estimated 50,000 to 150,000 people in need.

More than 200,000 migrant workers live in Lebanon, according to figures compiled by the American University of Beirut. The International Organization for Migration estimates 48,000 migrants have been displaced since March. Many are employed as cleaners or nannies under the kafala labor system, which binds them to local sponsors. Two Sudanese nationals were killed by an attack on April 5 in Jnah in Beirut's southern suburbs, and an Ethiopian national was killed when Israel demolished a building in Beirut's Tallet el Khayat neighborhood on April 8.

Shelters in Lebanon are officially supposed to accept all displaced people irrespective of nationality, but that is not always the case. Doctors Without Borders project coordinator Abdel Halim Abdallah said some migrant families are turned away and Lebanese citizens are often given priority. "Migrants face so many different restrictions," he said. Migrants accepted into shelters often face discrimination, such as being placed in basements or open areas, and many decide to leave as a result.

Doctors Without Borders has mapped more than 100 community houses used by migrants. Among them is Tres Marias, a kitchen and community center in a suburb north of Beirut that feeds about 200 people every day, most of them migrant workers. "They show love and affection and solidarity through food. It is a unifying thing," Abdallah said.