The woman who uses AI to bring aid to civilians in war-torn Lebanon

Last fall, Hania Zataari, a mechanical engineer working for Lebanon’s Ministry of Industry, put her skills to use as the war in the country continued. Originally from Sidon in southern Lebanon, she created a chatbot on WhatsApp that made it simpler to access much-needed help.

“They lost their homes, their savings, their jobs, everything they had built,” says Hania, referring to those who were forced to leave their homes because of the war.

On September 23, Israel dramatically escalated its offensive against the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, with which it had been fighting a spiraling conflict since Hezbollah attacked Israel in October 2023.

At least 492 people were killed in one of Lebanon’s deadliest days of conflict in nearly 20 years, according to the Lebanese government.

Thousands of families fled to Sidon after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked what they said were 1,600 Hezbollah strongholds inside Lebanon.

Hania says many displaced people sought shelter in schools and other public buildings, but many others who fled their homes were forced to rent elsewhere or stay with family members.

She wanted to help these people who did not receive direct support from the government. Leveraging her programming skills, Hania created the “aidbot” to bridge the gap between demand and supply for help.

The Aidbot is a chatbot (a type of artificial intelligence system designed to communicate with its users online) that links to WhatsApp. It is programmed to ask simple questions about the types of help people need along with their names and locations.

This information is then recorded in a Google spreadsheet that Hania and her team of unpaid volunteers, made up of friends and family, access to distribute aid such as food, blankets, mattresses, medicine and clothing.

Hania used her free time to create the bot using the Callbell.eu website, which is often used by businesses to interact with customers on Meta platforms such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger.

He explains that the bot, which is still in use today, makes aid distribution more efficient by reducing the amount of time spent responding to help requests via WhatsApp.

“I’m not really interested in knowing their names. I just need to know where they are so I can arrange delivery,” she says.

Take, for example, a request for baby formula. Hania says the robot will ask her the baby’s age and the amount needed so she and her team can provide it.

The project, he says, is financed by donations from Lebanese living abroad. She has created a publicly available dashboard to record what the project has spent money on and how much help she and her team have distributed.

At the time of writing, they have delivered 78 food parcels to families of 5 or 10 people, 900 mattresses and 323 blankets in Sidon and other parts of Lebanon.

Last October, Khaldoun Abbas, 47, and his family fled their homes in Najjarieh after receiving calls from the IDF urging them to leave for their own safety.

Seventeen people, ranging in age from nine to 78, slept under the same roof in a rented three-bedroom apartment in Sidon.

Khaldoun says he, his wife and children, as well as his brother’s family, slept on mattresses they requested using the help robot in the apartment hallway. They also requested blankets, food and cleaning detergents.

Unlike his neighbors, he has not been able to return home. It was destroyed in a confirmed Israeli attack 11 days later. The IDF told the BBC that they “attacked a terrorist infrastructure.”

When we brought this accusation to Khaldoun, he denied having any connection with Hezbollah or any other party.

“This is not the first time that Sidon has opened its doors to displaced people,” explains Hania, referring to the wave of people who have arrived in the city.

Sidon has a long reputation for hosting internally displaced people expelled from their homes along the Lebanon-Israel border.

The most recent conflict began in October 2023 after the war between Israel and Hamas spread to Lebanon when Hamas ally Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in support of Gaza.

The Lebanese Health Ministry says nearly 4,000 people have died and more than a million have been displaced. The ministry does not say how many of them are civilians or combatants.

In Israel, around 60,000 people have been evacuated from northern Israel and authorities say more than 80 soldiers and 47 civilians have died.

Last November, a ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Lebanon. Despite some skirmishes, it has largely held up. But people on the ground say aid delivery has not improved.

International NGO Islamic Relief told the BBC that “conflict, destruction and evacuation orders have fueled ongoing displacement in Lebanon, making it difficult to assess and address the needs of the population amid the changing situation.” .

But it is not just the war that hinders the distribution of aid.

Bilal Merie, a volunteer who works with Hania, says many of the problems they face are due to the “high demand but shortage” of aid.

He attributes this to the deep economic turmoil that has gripped the country since 2019, meaning the Lebanese government has had to rely heavily on funding from creditors and aid organizations for the acquisition of assets.

But even NGOs are feeling the crisis. Unicef ​​Lebanon says that with only 20% of the funding it needs, it “continues to face a huge funding gap”, meaning the charity is unable to help families when they need it most.

In a country overrun by financial problems and war, could this helping robot make a tangible difference?

It’s the first time researcher John Bryant at the Overseas Development Institute think tank has heard of a chatbot being used in such a way in the humanitarian sector.

He says that the cultural context in which it is used is commendable. That is, with knowledge of “the channels that people use to talk to each other and meet them in their own language.”

However, he is not sure of its scalability, as what works in Lebanon cannot be easily replicated in other parts of the world.

“What technology often offers is a standard approach.

“It’s the local designers, the local translators, the trusted human interlocutors and the elements within that system that turn digital tools into something useful,” he says.

The aid robot may not be able to offer the solution to all of Lebanon’s problems, but for the families who use it, it has made life a little easier.

Additional reporting by Ahmed Abdallah