The Executive Director of UNICEF, Ted Chaiban and Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), Carl Skau have issued a statement detailing the “devastation” they witnessed during a three-day visit to Lebanon.
Chaiban and Skau noted that the war that the world wanted to avoid in Lebanon is “now happening and has already triggered a catastrophe.”
The Heads of the two UN agencies disclosed that they visited settlements and shelters and spoke with government officials and civil society leaders.
They said that each person had a story – “a story of forced displacement and multiple struggles.”
“Families are living in perilous circumstances. And as the conflict worsens, the psychological toll on the population, particularly among children and youth, is increasing. Almost every child in Lebanon has been impacted in some way.”
Ted Chaiban & Carl Skau
Chaiban and Skau said that about 1.2 million people have been affected so far and nearly 190,000 displaced individuals are being sheltered in more than 1,000 facilities, stating that many have been victims of bombardments, losing loved ones, their homes, access to education, and “are facing an uncertain future in possibly deeper poverty.”
Separately, the UN refugee agency’s Middle East Director, Rema Jamous Imseis stated that new Israeli evacuation orders for 20 villages in southern Lebanon mean more than one-quarter of the country is now affected. “People are heeding these calls to evacuate, and they’re fleeing with almost nothing,” he told a press briefing in Geneva.
According to the Lebanese government, strikes by Israel, which also began incursions into southern Lebanon, have killed at least 2,309 people over the last year. More than 1.2 million people have been displaced.
The majority were killed since late September when Israel expanded its military campaign.
Additionally, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights revealed that it received reports that most of the victims of an Israeli air strike on a building in northern Lebanon were women and children.
Spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told the Geneva news briefing that “12 women and two children” were among those killed in the attack in the Christian-majority town of Aitou. Lebanese health officials said that at least 21 people were killed in the air strike.
He called for an investigation into the incident.
“We understand it was a four-storey residential building that was struck. With these factors in mind, we have real concerns with respect to IHL [international humanitarian law], so the laws of war and the principles of distinction proportion and proportionality.”
Jeremy Laurence
Israel Attempting To Impose ‘New Security Reality’ In Middle East
According to Abdullah Al-Arian, a Professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, Israel hasn’t had a plan throughout its war on Gaza and now Lebanon but is trying to “impose a new security reality on the entire region.”
The Professor told a news agency that the Israeli army is trying to neutralise any opposition and resistance coming from the north, from the front with Hezbollah, in an attempt to be able to basically continue to “commit its genocide in Gaza unchallenged.”
“What really needs to be discussed is the extent to which there is an attempt to occupy parts of southern Lebanon and try to reshape the entire Lebanese political system in a way that is much more favourable to both the US and Israel.”
Abdullah Al-Arian
He added that Israel is not interested in implementing any UN resolutions at the Israel-Lebanon border.
He noted that Israel’s “continued destruction” of Gaza and Lebanon – at a scale much larger than ever before – is collective punishment for the resistance groups that have emerged over the decades in response to Israeli military actions.
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