The people of Lebanon are facing their ”hour of greatest need”, the United Nations said on Monday in launching an emergency appeal for $150-million to help an estimated 800 000 civilians whose lives have been disrupted by Israeli bombing of Lebanon.
The relief plan would focus on providing food, water, healthcare and other essential services, Jan Egeland, the UN emergency relief coordinator, said.
The situation in Lebanon is ”very bad, and deteriorating by the day”, said Egeland. On Sunday he described the bombing of south Beirut as ”a violation of humanitarian law”.
But on Monday he had harsh words for Hezbollah as well, rebuking the Shi’ite group for cravenly using civilians as human shields. ”Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending … among women and children,” Egeland said.
A UN report accompanying the appeal highlighted the scale of the devastation during 12 days of warfare, saying:
- The ongoing [Israeli] military operation has caused enormous damage to residential areas and key civilian infrastructure such as power plants, seaports and fuel depots.
- Hundreds of bridges and virtually all road networks have been systematically destroyed, leaving entire communities in the south inaccessible.
- Skyrocketing prices for basic goods (the price of sugar has risen by 600% and cooking gas by 400%) further deplete the coping mechanisms of the Lebanese.
- The longer the hostilities last, the more dramatic the humanitarian situation will become. Food, water, health, fuel, and other basic needs will increase; so will the number of internally displaced persons.
- Reports indicate that there is a lack of essential goods, with needs particularly acute in villages along the Israeli-Lebanese border, which have been isolated by the conflict. There are reports that food supplies in some villages have been exhausted.
- The widespread destruction of public infrastructure … as well as the targeting of commercial trucks, has seriously hampered relief operations.
- As many as 800 persons live in a school designed for 200 to 300 children. School water systems cannot cope with the extent of needs. Neither can sanitary facilities … a resurgence of diarrhoea cases has been noted in some centres.
In addition to this list, Egeland said there was one school housing 1 000 people which had only six toilets. He warned that fuel was becoming critical in many areas and power failure would affect water supplies and sewage, bringing increased health risks. Calling for an immediate ceasefire, he said: ”Only cessation of hostilities can really make it safe for us [to deliver aid].” Failing that, the UN was hoping to arrange a ”notification scheme” which would allow safe passage for humanitarian goods.
The UN already had 100 trucks contracted or on their way to deliver aid within Lebanon, Egeland said. The first convoy could head south from Beirut to Sidon and Tyre as early as Wednesday, and the UN was working on details with the Israeli military, he said.
The UN is asking Israel for safe passage through three Lebanese ports. Initially, it hopes to have two ships ferrying supplies into Beirut from Cyprus, with the ports of Tripoli, in the north, and Tyre, in the south, to be added later.
It has also asked Israel to grant safe passage for convoys from Syria. Egeland said the plan was to set up a staging area on the border to receive aid and prioritise it for distribution. ”We are hopeful that in the course of this week you will see a real difference on the ground. By next week we will have a major operation really started,” he said.
The White House said on Monday that George Bush had ordered helicopters and ships to Lebanon to give humanitarian aid. ”Humanitarian supplies will start arriving in Lebanon tomorrow [Wednesday] by helicopter and by ship,” said White House spokesperson Tony Snow. ”We are working with Israel and Lebanon to open up humanitarian corridors.” He described the move as ”a significant US commitment”.
Bush still opposed the idea of an immediate ceasefire, he added, saying there was no reason to believe it would stop violence in the Middle East; instead the world should confront Hezbollah and its practice of using the Lebanese people as ”human shields”.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice holds talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday with little immediate prospect of a ceasefire.
As Rice began her diplomatic mission by meeting Lebanese leaders in Beirut on Monday, Israeli forces battled Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon and kept up two weeks of air strikes. Hezbollah fired more rockets into Israel.
Hezbollah said on Tuesday five guerrillas had been killed in the past two days.
Israel said two soldiers were killed in fighting on Monday near Bint Jbeil, a Hezbollah stronghold 4km inside Lebanon to which its forces have pushed.
At least 383 people in Lebanon and 41 Israelis have been killed in the conflict, ignited by Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12.
In Beirut, Rice unveiled truce proposals similar to Israel’s demand for Hezbollah to pull back from the border to allow an international force to deploy, Lebanese politicians said.
”Any peace is going to have to be based on enduring principles and not on temporary solutions,” Rice told reporters in Jerusalem before dinner with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
While saying she has no plan for Middle East shuttle diplomacy, Rice’s schedule this week resembles just that. She headed to Jerusalem after her trip to Beirut and will also visit Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.
Rice has made clear she is not seeking a quick ceasefire and any solution should address the root causes of the conflict — for which Washington and Israel blame Hezbollah and its backers in Iran and Syria.
Israel’s army, who has also waged a military campaign in Gaza since June 28 to recover a soldier seized by Palestinian militants, believed it may have a week to keep pounding Hezbollah before a deal was reached, security sources said.
Among the issues on the table at Rice’s meetings are US demands that Hezbollah withdraw away from Israel’s border, the deployment of an international force alongside the Lebanese army in the area and the return of the Israeli soldiers.
Sticking points
One of the key sticking points for a ceasefire is the sequence of events for a deal.
Lebanese Parliament speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah and close to Syria, told Rice in Beirut a ceasefire should come first, followed by an exchange of prisoners and then discussion of other issues, a Lebanese political source said.
Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who has pleaded for an immediate ceasefire, was more open to Rice’s proposal and discussed ways of developing her ideas, his office said. A US official said Siniora also wanted a prisoner exchange first.
Israel wants Hezbollah to leave the border area immediately and free the captured soldiers without conditions.
Many of the issues will be discussed at an international conference in Rome on Wednesday. Rice is then set to go to Malaysia for talks with Asian leaders before a possible return to the Middle East.
But ground raids and air strikes have failed to stop Hezbollah firing rockets into northern Israeli cities, where they have killed 17 civilians so far. More than 100 rockets fell on Monday, wounding at least 11 people.
Israel says it would accept an international force to dislodge Hezbollah guerrillas from the border and several European Union nations have said they were ready to contribute to a UN peace force.
But just as Hezbollah has fought Israeli attempts to drive it from the south, it would likely resist an international effort to do the same.
Israel’s Lebanon offensive has coincided with its push into the Gaza Strip to try to recover the soldier captured by Palestinian militants and halt rocket fire. Israeli forces have killed at least 121 Palestinians in the month since then.
Early on Tuesday, Israel launched air strikes in the Gaza Strip, wounding eight people, local residents and medics said.
The Israeli military said it had targeted and destroyed buildings used to store rockets and munitions belonging to the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad. The residents said the eight wounded were all bystanders. – Reuters, Guardian