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It was the first time Mariam Nasereddine had seen her friend’s newborn twins. The pair, just four days old, were lying in a plastic bread crate – a makeshift cot their mother had created.

For weeks, the family has been sleeping on the floor in a school classroom in Mount Lebanon, filled with other families displaced by Israel’s attacks on the country.

“When I saw them in that crate, I just started crying,” says Nasereddine, who lives in Sydney, as she recalls the video call with her friend.

“I couldn’t look at them. It was too much.”

Nasereddine is among members of Australia’s Lebanese diaspora facing a worsening psychological toll as the Israeli military invasion of the country intensifies.

Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, this week said its army would occupy swathes of south Lebanon and destroy homes along the border, prompting concerns of long-term forced displacement. Katz drew a comparison to Gaza, where Israel’s military razed most homes in the territory’s neighbourhoods.

More than a million people have been displaced by Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities. The death toll has surpassed 1,200, including more than 120 children, the Lebanese health ministry said.

With much of Lebanon’s south populated by the Shia Muslim community, their relatives in Australia have expressed helplessness and grief as they watch on in horror.

Nasereddine, who first moved to Australia from her home country in 1990, wakes each day and immediately checks the news. She searches through the names listed as part of a growing death toll.

Last month, three of her friends and their families were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Beirut.

“Every single moment of that terrifying ongoing attack on Lebanon is just eating me up,” she says. “I’m not sleeping, well, I’m not eating. I cry easily … I’m in a constant worry.”

Israel launched a military campaign in Lebanon shortly after Lebanon-based military group Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel on 2 March in retaliation for the US-Israel’s assassination of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But areas of the south have been subjected to continuous Israeli military action since 2023.

In January, Nasereddine’s heavily pregnant friend was forced to evacuate from her family’s home in Aitaroun.

They later relocated to Mount Lebanon because schools in the capital were overflowing with displaced civilians.

“She tells me: ‘I have zero hope that I’m returning to my house,’” Nasereddine says.

Her in-laws are living with five other families – also forced to leave their homes in the south – in a two-bedroom house in Mount Lebanon.

Mustafa, a Lebanese Australian who requested his surname not be published, has also spent weeks in anguish as he messages his extended family who have evacuated their homes in the country’s south.

“I’ve seen videos of my little cousins crying, not understanding what the situation is or why they have to go,” he says.

“They tend to understand that they’re being bombed. They understand there is a war but they don’t understand why. And that impacts them.”

Mustafa’s cousin, who has two children, recently returned to their village, Aitit, in the country’s south because they were unable to find affordable accommodation.

“She’s at a point where she said I’d rather all of us go in peace,” he says.

“It’s hard to cope with not knowing what will happen … you feel utterly helpless.

“We have loved ones who could die at any moment and that is nothing easy in your subconscious to live with.”

The Shia Muslim Council of Australia this week wrote to the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, highlighting the “profound distress” within the Lebanese Australian community and calling for increased humanitarian assistance and pathways for migrants and refugees to remain open.

The council also urged the federal government to speak out against Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, including the targeting of civilians, journalists and healthcare workers.

“These attacks have been condemned by the UN and in joint statements by Western nations. We should not wait for Lebanon to become the next Gaza before we condemn these actions,” the letter says.

This week Wong released a joint statement alongside the UK and several EU nations expressing the government’s support for the government and citizens of Lebanon.

“We express our condolences to the family of the victims and our solidarity to the civilian population impacted by this war both in Lebanon and Israel,” the statement said.

Wong “strongly condemned” Hezbollah’s attacks in support of Iran against Israel and called for all parties to immediately de-escalate.

Last month, Australia announced an extra $5m in aid to support civilians in Lebanon, particularly women and children affected by the conflict.