School starts soon in Lebanon but thousands still shelter in them during war

TYRE, Lebanon -- Eleven-year-old Fatima Khashab helps her mother tidy the small area where their family sleeps, in a row of makeshift living quarters in a school gymnasium.About 200 families are sheltering in the school in Lebanon’s southern coastal city of Tyre. Most are from villages farther south that have been destroyed in the latest war between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah or are occupied by Israeli forces, like Fatima’s hometown of Mansouri.The school year will start on Sept. 15, but thousands of displaced people still shelter in public schools. With negotiations between Israel and Lebanon — and between the U.S. and Iran — stalled, there is no political solution in sight that would allow them to go home.Education officials say they have a plan to reopen the schools while maintaining shelters for families with nowhere to go. But anxiety is high.“We don’t know if we will be able to go back to our village or if the crisis will get even worse. Nobody except for God knows what’s going to happen," said Fatima’s mother, Randa al-Taki, 51.On top of that, she said, “Our children are deprived of school, and we don’t know if they are going to learn this y...