Thousands Are Fleeing War in Lebanon. She Flew There.
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 18 March 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Israel and America’s war with Iran has spread, leading to the displacement of nearly 20 percent of people in Lebanon. What does that look like on the ground—and how will the conflict end?
Guests:
Basma Alloush, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Rescue Committee.
Joshua Keating, senior correspondent at Vox.
Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Bosma Aleush landed in Lebanon last week. |
| 0:10.4 | And the sound of war, it has already become second nature for her. |
| 0:17.9 | Two nights ago or three nights ago, I can't remember. |
| 0:21.7 | There were two loud airstrikes that hit the Dahi area in the southern suburbs of Beirut. |
| 0:29.0 | One was at midnight and the other was at 1 a.m. |
| 0:31.9 | And I woke up to the sound of the explosions and then said, oh wow, okay, that was really loud and just went back to |
| 0:39.4 | sleep. And last night, it was the exact same thing. So you can hear everything, but you're |
| 0:44.1 | weirdly accustomed to it? Yeah, it's really weird because you fall into the trap that you |
| 0:50.7 | hear about Lebanon, where something could be happening in one place, and then, you know, |
| 0:56.3 | life is normal everywhere else. |
| 1:01.5 | Basma works for the International Rescue Committee. |
| 1:04.7 | She went to Lebanon to document the way the war in Iran is changing this country, too. |
| 1:10.6 | This new front opened up when Hezbollah launched missiles towards Israel, defending their Iranian backers. |
| 1:18.3 | In the days since, Israel has hit back with brutal force. |
| 1:23.6 | You know, it's been two weeks and we have over a million people displaced. |
| 1:27.3 | So I felt like it was really important to help the team kind of bring more visibility to the humanitarian crisis here. |
| 1:34.4 | Basma's got personal experience fleeing a war zone. |
| 1:38.0 | She's Syrian, was forced to leave her own country 15 years back. |
| 1:42.3 | Her husband is Palestinian-American, has family in Lebanon. Now, Basma |
| 1:48.6 | Spencer days shuttling between makeshift shelters, schools, mostly. She tries to understand who's |
| 1:55.2 | getting caught in the crossfire and how they're living now. I met a grandfather, a new grandfather today. |
| 2:03.2 | His daughter gave birth five days ago in a shelter or while she was in displacement. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

