Mental Health

Beirut, Lebanon – It is four weeks into the United States-Israeli war on Iran, and millions of civilians are suffering in Lebanon, now facing a second large-scale Israeli attack on their country in less than two years.

About a quarter of Lebanon’s population has been displaced after Israel’s mass forced evacuation orders from the country’s south and Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh.

Many of the displaced are extremely frustrated and fatigued. And even those who are not displaced are feeling the pressure, with deadly Israeli attacks continuing, petrol prices increasing, business in general slowing down, and little sign that the conflict will end any time soon.

Samiha, a Palestinian teacher who had been living near Tyre, in southern Lebanon, but recently relocated to Beirut, said the experience was “not good at all”. However, with the previous Israeli campaign in Lebanon not long ago, her family came into this round more prepared.

“It’s not the first time for us. Now we know more about where to go.” Still, she maintained, “we don’t know how long this will last and if there is a solution”.

Foreigners most vulnerable

Israel intensified its war on Lebanon again on March 2, after Hezbollah responded to Israeli attacks for the first time in more than a year.

Hezbollah – a close ally of Iran – claimed the attack was retaliation for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s assassination two days earlier. A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah had ostensibly been in effect since November 27, 2024, despite the United Nations counting more than 10,000 Israeli ceasefire violations in that period, and hundreds of Lebanese deaths.

After Hezbollah’s reply, Israel intensified its attacks on the south and declared its intention to occupy southern Lebanon. Israel also issued forced evacuation orders for areas of southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs, and a few villages in the eastern Bekaa Valley, leading to a massive displacement crisis of at least 1.2 million people, according to the Lebanese government. Now, Israel has also stated its intent to occupy southern Lebanon and set up a so-called security zone, while destroying more villages along the southern border.

The crisis has hit people who live in Lebanon severely, particularly the country’s most vulnerable people.

“The most vulnerable cases that we’re coming upon are happening, either migrant workers, either Syrians, foreign bodies, basically,” Rena Ayoubi, a volunteer who has organised aid near Beirut’s waterfront, Biel, told Al Jazeera.

She said other people who have suffered deeply in this period include: people with chronic diseases, cancer patients on dialysis, people who cannot access insulin, and displaced people who don’t have access to a fridge to store their medicine.

‘Different in scale and speed’

A series of catastrophes is unfolding, with women, children and those suffering with psychological issues suffering the most, according to a variety of sources, including aid workers, volunteers and UN workers. The humanitarian crisis in 2024 was severe, they said, but 2026 is on a whole different level.

“Now is significantly different in the scale and speed and number of people impacted,” Anandita Philipose, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA)’s representative in Lebanon, told Al Jazeera. “The mass evacuation orders are new. The scale of displacement is new. The fact that civilian infrastructure was targeted is new.”

Many women, in particular, have been displaced not only from their homes but from their healthcare networks, including offices or support systems that will help them through pregnancies.

“Pregnant women do not stop giving birth in the middle of conflict, and women don’t stop having periods in the middle of conflicts,” Philipose said.

Israel’s latest war on Lebanon has so far killed 1,094 people and wounded another 3,119 in Lebanon, according to the country’s Ministry of Public Health. Among the dead are 81 women and 121 children, in just over three weeks.

“Children have yet again been caught up in this escalation, Heidi Diedrich, national director of World Vision in Lebanon, told Al Jazeera. “Children are deeply affected by the violence regardless of their protected status as civilians under international humanitarian law, and regardless of their rights as children. We are deeply concerned that this escalation will continue to impact children in Lebanon for weeks or even months to come.”

Never-ending trauma

At an office building in Beirut, two volunteers sit behind desks waiting for phones to ring. The volunteers are closely monitored by clinical psychologists. On the other end are people calling in for help, many in some of their darkest moments.

This is the office for the National Lifeline in Lebanon (1564) for Emotional Support and Suicide Prevention Hotline, a collaboration between the National Mental Health Programme and Embrace, a nonprofit focused on mental health. 1564 is the phone number that people who require psychological support can dial.

“We’ve been in the worst situation for the past two years,” Jad Chamoun, operations manager at the National Lifeline 1564, told Al Jazeera from the Lifeline centre in Beirut.

“Even when there was a ceasefire, people were still living under the conditions, they were still displaced.”

Even before March 2, about 64,000 people in Lebanon were displaced, according to the International Organization for Migration. According to a March 2025 report from Lebanon’s National Mental Health Programme, three in five people in the country “currently screen positive for depression, anxiety, or PTSD”. And that was before the current intensification.

“The living conditions we’re in is a continuous trauma, because it’s never ending,” Chamoun said. Lebanon went through one of the world’s worst economic crises in 2019, which continues today. In the following years, people in Lebanon experienced the COVID-19 pandemic, the Beirut explosion, mass emigration, and now two Israeli large-scale military campaigns in short succession.

Amid the current violence, the number of calls has increased substantially, Chamoun said, from about 30 a day during 2024’s Israeli attacks to almost 50 a day now. But, he added, that the peak for calls tends to be a few months after the end of a conflict or crisis. Currently, people are in survival mode.

The cascading series of disasters and brutal Israeli aggression has left many in Lebanon near, or well past, their breaking points. Many are falling through the cracks. Volunteers and professionals at efforts like this one are doing what they can to catch as many people as they can.

“We try to sit with them in the darkness, which is what’s heavy around us. We try to share with them this pain,” Chamoun said. “And this is what’s been the heaviest nowadays.”

Some things simply can’t be beat

A classic period drama, one that popularised the genre globally, is still regarded as one of the finest to ever grace our screens. Period drama enthusiasts will be familiar with the show in question — Upstairs, Downstairs.

Upstairs, Downstairs laid the groundwork for Downton Abbey with a story that will be familiar with fans who have only seen the modern sensation. As the definitive period dramas of their era, the parallels between Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey are self-evident.

Both shows portray the personal struggles of an aristocratic family and their servants against a backdrop of social and political upheaval on an overlapping timeline.

Like Downton Abbey, it spans three decades, covering both World Wars and the roaring 20s through to the Great Depression. The classic show chronicled the turbulent lives of the aristocratic Bellamy family and their servants in the early 1900s.

They diverge in numerous ways, however, and one is immediately apparent.

The seventies programme is less high-end, a quality that can taken as nostalgic or a dealbreaker. Upstairs, Downstairs premiered in 1971 and ran for five years, predating Downton Abbey by a good 50 years.

In fairness, Downton’s setting is inherently more luxurious. The Bellamy family inhabit a London townhouse, a far cry from the Crawley family’s lavish country estate that was a character in its own right.

And while Downton’s visuals proved a triumph, a frequent criticism from audiences is that the programme descended into melodrama. In contrast, Upstairs, Downstairs has been likened to a stage play for its more understated visuals and plotlines.

Fans of both period dramas shared their preferences. One viewer sparked a debate on Reddit, asking: “If you have seen both shows, which show do you think is better?”

“Upstairs Downstairs without question,” replied one viewer decisively. Another agreed: “I like Downton Abbey better, but Upstairs, Downstairs is the better show.

“I have tried watching the Upstairs/Downstairs remake multiple times and I always end stopping after about two episodes,” commented a third. “It just doesn’t grab me like Downton.”

Upstairs, Downstairs is available to watch on ITVX.

A California jury found ⁠Alphabet’s Google and Meta liable for $3m in damages in a landmark social media addiction lawsuit that accused the companies of being legally responsible for the addictive design of their platforms.

The decision was handed down by a Los Angeles-based jury on Wednesday after more than 40 hours of deliberation across nine days, and more than a month after jurors heard opening statements in the trial.

Among those who testified in the case were Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri, although YouTube chief executive Neal Mohan was not called to testify.

The plaintiff in the case, referred to as KGM or Kaley, was awarded $3m in damages. The 20-year-old said she became addicted to social media at a young age, which exacerbated her mental health issues. She began using YouTube at age six and Meta-owned Instagram at age nine.

Kaley’s legal team alleged that the social media giants used designed features intended to hook young users, including notifications and autoplay features.

“Today’s verdict is a historic moment — for Kaley and for the thousands of children and families who have been waiting for this day. She showed extraordinary courage in bringing this case and telling her story in open court. A jury of Kaley’s peers heard the evidence, heard what Meta and YouTube knew and when they knew it, and held them accountable for their conduct. Today’s verdict belongs to Kaley,” lawyers for the plaintiff said in a statement shared with Al Jazeera.

Jurors were instructed not to consider the content of the posts and videos Kaley saw on the platforms. That is because tech companies are shielded from legal responsibility for user-posted content under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.

Meta consistently argued that Kaley had struggled with her mental health separate from her social media use, often pointing to her turbulent home life. Meta also said, “not one of her therapists identified social media as the cause” of her mental health issues in a statement following closing arguments. But the plaintiffs did not have to prove that social media caused Kaley’s struggles — only that it was a “substantial factor” in causing her harm.

YouTube focused less on Kaley’s medical records and mental health history and more on her use of the platform itself. The company argued that YouTube is not a form of social media, but rather a video platform, akin to television, and pointed to her declining use as she got older.

According to company data, she spent about one minute per day on average watching YouTube Shorts since its inception. YouTube Shorts, which launched in 2020, is the platform’s section for short-form, vertical videos that include the “infinite scroll” feature that the plaintiffs argued was addictive.

“We disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal. This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site,” Jose Castaneda, a spokesperson for Google, told Al Jazeera.

Meta did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

Snap and TikTok were previously named in the suit but settled with the plaintiff for undisclosed terms before the trial began.

Shifting momentum

The verdict is the latest in a wave of lawsuits targeting social media companies. There is a looming federal social media addiction case slated to begin in June in Oakland, California.

On Tuesday in New Mexico, a jury found that Meta violated state law by misleading users about the safety of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and by enabling child sexual exploitation on those platforms.

This case has been closely watched by legal experts, who say the verdict will shape future litigation.

“The fact the jury found Meta and Google liable represents that these cases have real exposure to the social media giants, and are going to frame how future litigation will proceed. Although this case will certainly be appealed, I would not be surprised if Meta and Google are already making changes within their platform to reflect the real exposure, and hopefully, the states will start to enact laws regulating social media in a manner congruent with the ruling,” entertainment lawyer Tre Lovell told Al Jazeera.

Professor Eric Goldman, associate dean for research at the Santa Clara University School of Law, echoed Lovell’s assessment.

“The Los Angeles jury verdict is the first of three bellwether trials in Los Angeles, with more bellwether trials to follow in summer, in the federal case. As such, today’s verdict is just one datapoint about liability and damages. The other trials could reach divergent outcomes, so this jury verdict isn’t the final word on any matter.”

Despite the ruling, Meta’s stock has not taken a hit, as it came the same day CEO Mark Zuckerberg was appointed to a new White House advisory council. The stock is up 0.7 percent. Alphabet’s stock, however, is trending downward in midday trading on the heels of the verdict, down 1 percent.