Forced Evacuations and the Politics of Return in South Lebanon
Legal and Identity Implications
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13089657 |
|---|---|
| Authors | J L Diab (0000-0003-4158-7728, Lebanese American University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 409-422 |
| Publication date | 2025-08-12 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal on Migration and Human Security (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2330-2488 • E-ISSN: 2331-5024 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/23315024251355670 |
| OpenAlex | W4413194308 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 35 |
Executive Summary This article examines the legal and identity implications of forced evacuations in South Lebanon amid the 2023–2025 escalation of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork with 80 displaced families from Aita al-Shaab, Khiam, and Odaisseh, it interrogates how prolonged displacement — absent state-led return, restitution, or recognition — transforms internal displacement into a condition of de facto exile. Using the lens of international refugee, human rights, and humanitarian law, including the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the Pinheiro Principles, the study reveals how Lebanon’s lack of a formal framework for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and its selective reconstruction efforts undermine displaced individuals’ rights and legal belonging. It further explores how displacement intersects with class, political affiliation, and sectarian dynamics, deepening inequalities in access to aid, return, and recognition. The article challenges the assumption that humanitarian assistance can substitute for legal protection, emphasizing that the failure to translate international obligations into domestic enforcement mechanisms leaves IDPs in a state of legal and political limbo. Conceptually, it engages with theories of “displacement in place,” “involuntary immobility,” and “stuckness” to show how legal ambiguity, psychological toll, and administrative erasure reconfigure internal displacement as a state of exclusion and abandonment. Ultimately, the article calls for a rights-based and enforceable approach to internal displacement in Lebanon, arguing that without legal accountability and state action, humanitarianism alone cannot address the structural dimensions of exile
Aesthetics · Art · Forced migration · Identity (music · Political science · Politics · China's Global Influence and Migration · Law · Middle East Politics and Society · Migration, Refugees, and Integration
Displaced in a Land of Denial
International Organization for Migration (IOM)
Lessons in Post-War Reconstruction
The Internally Displaced Person in International Law
The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement
Individual Property Restitution
The IDP in International Law’? Developments, Debates, Prospects
The politics of stuckness
The Right to Stay, Migrate and Return
Durable Displacement and the Protracted Search for Solutions
Missiles and Misfits
A theory of migration
Fluid Borders, Temporary Refuge
The after-effects of the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah war
Hezbollah as Urban Planner? Questions To and From Planning Theory
Good international citizenship and the protection of internally displaced persons
Internal Displacement, Internal Migration, and Refugee Flows
Evacuations as Displacement
The UN Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons (The Pinheiro Principles)
The South Lebanon Border Zone
Hizballah and the Israeli Withdrawal from Southern Lebanon
Protection of internally displaced persons
Regional planning scenarios in South Lebanon
Lebanon's response to the Syrian refugee crisis – Institutional ambiguity as a governance strategy
The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement
Reconstructing post-war Lebanon
Involuntary Immobility
A very political reconstruction
The Politics of Property in Planning
Echoing and re-echoing refugee policies in the international system
Migration in the age of involuntary immobility
Trauma-Informed Participatory Research in Displacement Studies
Introduction
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |