GENEVA

An average of 19,000 children have been displaced every day in Lebanon over the past three weeks amid ongoing Israeli strikes, a UNICEF official said Friday.

"In just three weeks, more than 370,000 children have been forced out of their homes in Lebanon, an average of at least 19,000 girls and boys displaced every single day," said Marcoluigi Corsi, UNICEF representative in Lebanon, during a UN briefing in Geneva.

To grasp the scale, he explained, this is the equivalent of "hundreds of school buses filled with children fleeing for their lives every 24 hours."

Corsi said the crisis has displaced roughly 20% of Lebanon's population in less than a month, with more than one million people uprooted. "The speed and scale are staggering," he said, describing a "sudden, chaotic mass displacement" that is "tearing families apart and hollowing out entire communities."

He warned of severe psychological consequences for children caught in repeated cycles of violence, saying the mental and emotional exhaustion weighing on them is "devastating."

"This relentless cycle of bombardment and displacement is severely compounding their psychological scars, embedding deep-seated fear and threatening profound, long-term emotional harm," Corsi said.

Deteriorating living conditions are adding to the toll, he noted, with more than 135,000 displaced people sheltering in over 660 sites, many overcrowded and unsafe. At least 121 children have been killed and 395 injured, he added.

"The human cost of this escalation is shocking," Corsi said, stressing that basic services are collapsing, with water systems damaged and over 435 schools now repurposed as shelters, disrupting education for more than 115,000 students.

"Children are paying the highest price for this conflict," he said, calling for "an immediate ceasefire" and urgent humanitarian access. "They need to stop running and start living as children should."