This case study addresses the forms of relief emerging from grassroots initiatives organised during war by focusing on the case of Samidoun in the July war as experienced and narrated by some activists, organizers and experts. This study argues that a total reliance on professionalization and NGO-ization in aid provision during war can prevent the emergence of civil resistance forms of relief. It suggests that in a site that suffers from internal political tensions like Lebanon, “traditional” state and non-state structures were not able to provide immediate and sustainable aid for displaced families during the war. An organizational structure functioning outside traditional relief channels thereby helped prevent a humanitarian crisis outbreak. Local relief in the aftermath of the July war however turned the group from a collective to a local implementer of global relief programs, whereby providing relief and collecting in-praxis data were undermined, as it had to abide by the new and professionalized humanitarian terrain.
