Baby bottle, parents’ medicine and dog food among items brought with those fleeing warPhotographer Laura Menassa documented the items Lebanese people took when they were forced to flee their homes following Israeli airstrikes. This image shows how Zaynab was preoccupied with her youngest child's needs. She and her family moved to Choueifat, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, before being displaced once again to a tent in Biel Laura MenassaJohn O'ConnorSat Jul 11 2026 - 06:00 • 2 MIN READLebanon-based photographer Laura Menassa, who has been working with the charity ActionAid, often wondered what items she would take if she had to leave her home in an emergency. “The question kept growing inside me,” says Menassa. She started to ask friends and family what items they would take in similar circumstances. They gathered objects and Menassa placed them on their bed or on the floor. Trophies showing what the word “home” meant to them. Following the October 7th, 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel and subsequent conflict in southern Lebanon, this “project was no longer based on imagination, but on reality”, she says. When she asked women who had been displaced by the war what they could take with them, they all said utilities and documentation; the basic necessities.Most did not have the luxury of gathering memories or sentimental belongings, like Manessa’s friends and family had done previously.“When fleeing is no longer hypothetical but a matter of survival, choices are reduced to what is necessary,” she says.More than one million people have been forcibly displaced from southern Lebanon. Many found refuge in Biel (the Beirut International Exhibition & Leisure), a former leisure complex in Beirut. One woman displaced by the war, Suma, sought refuge there. After being asked to move their tent while authorities cleared areas of the camp, Suma and her sister Shahida rebuilt their shelter from scratch using plastic covers and wood. “There was an airstrike,” says Suma. “My husband was injured by pieces of the collapsing building and he died from his wounds.”Suma was only able to save a baby bottle and milk for her daughter Fatuma and a watch and makeup for herself. Tharwat's family were forced to leave their home in Dahiyeh, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the morning after Israeli airstrikes began targeting their neighbourhood. Alongside her official papers and telephone, the first things Tharwat took with her were her parents’ medicine, a photograph of her son as a child, two perfumes from her collection, her vitamins and her designer sunglasses Suma and Shahida are two friends who were displaced, along with family members, from Nabatieh in south Lebanon. When they were forced to flee, Shahida took a watch, baby formula, perfume, shampoo, soap and deodorant. Suma, whose husband was subsequently killed by an Israeli airstrike, placed her own watch in the photograph, while her aunt added her necklace Although most of the products Suma and Shahida now use come from donations, items such as shampoo, soap and perfume were a comfort in the dark initial days after they and their family members were displaced from their homes in Nabatieh, south Lebanon Abir is a Lebanese grandmother displaced from the city of Nabatieh, where she worked in a beauty centre. She fled to Biel, where she lives in a small tent with her two dogs. When forced to leave her home, she took her official papers, phone, power bank, her dogs and their food. 'The most important thing for me was the dogs, to get them out,' she says IN THIS SECTION