“We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation many expressed fear that this is just the beginning,” said Imran Riza, the top UN aid official in Lebanon. “The UN and its partners are working closely with the Lebanese government to support response efforts. This includes tailoring aid distribution, conducting joint assessments and identifying urgent needs for affected populations.”
Speaking from Beirut, Mr Riza, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, said the country’s people – especially those in the south – had been “living in fear” for almost a year that the war in Gaza could come to them come.
Today, across Lebanon, thousands of people in rural communities previously unaffected by Israeli attacks on Hezbollah infrastructure are fleeing bombings and widespread destruction that have claimed at least 700 lives, injured thousands and uprooted some 120,000 people “within just a few hours,” he said, adding: “We meet people who say: ‘What is the road to Tripoli? How do we get there?’”
The U.N. aid coordinator’s comments come amid increasingly intense firefights along the U.N.-monitored border between Lebanon and Israel since October 7, when war broke out in the Gaza Strip. The extraordinary attacks by Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies last week left hundreds dead and heralded the start of intense Israeli bombing in Lebanon and retaliatory attacks by Hezbollah.
Relative safety
Tens of thousands of people have fled Lebanon for the relative safety of Syria through several 24-hour border crossings, the UN refugee agency said.UNHCR) confirmed. “Where people cross the border into Syria, they are safe so far,” said Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR representative in Syria, at the Syria-Lebanon border.
“We would of course not only call for a stop to the bombings in general, but also to prevent people from being bombed who are trying to flee.”
Mr Vargas Llosa described “large numbers of people” returning to Syria, a reference to some of the approximately 1.5 million Syrians who have fled their country’s civil war since 2011. “It is estimated that this number is now well over 30,000, with approximately 75 people. -80 percent of those Syrians and the remaining twenty percent Lebanese,” the UNHCR official said.
Young lives lost
“We saw quite a few injured people arriving; people who were not only injured during the very difficult journey on the way here, but who were also injured as a direct result of the bombings in Lebanon.
“We saw a woman crossing with two dead children from Lebanon who were going to be buried here in Syria.”
Back in Lebanon, UN humanitarians continue to provide aid coordination to assist the Lebanese government. Nearly 500 shelters have been opened for about 80,000 displaced people, including 300 schools that have been repurposed, impacting the education of more than 100,000 students.
But “critical funding gaps” remain in many areas, including shelter repairs, site management, food supplies, fuel and coordination, Mr Riza said, before warning that Lebanon’s healthcare system is “completely overwhelmed” by the severe escalation of the hostilities.
“We have done a lot of preparatory work and fortunately we have managed to get trauma kits and things like that and try to distribute them throughout the country as well, because the displacement is now not only happening in the south,” he explained.
“The first eleven months it was mainly the south – it was mainly the Bekaa (valley)… But now it’s all over the country.”