Al-Ahram Weekly | Region | 700,000 displaced

As we entered the third week of an escalating war on Lebanon, the death toll continued to rise while Israel showed no sign of softening in line with a US "New Middle East" project. Faced with an increasingly effective and resistant Hizbullah, how have the region's political faultlines been shaped? Al-Ahram Weekly staff seek answers

700,000 displaced

Lebanon's humanitarian plight is desperate, reports Lucy Fielder, while Israel shows little sign of letting up on its mass bombing campaign

Shock was visible on the face of the UN's emergency relief coordinator this weekend when he toured the desolate wasteland that a few weeks ago was Beirut's busy, packed southern suburbs. "It is horrific. I did not know it was block after block of houses," Jan Egeland told reporters amid the rubble, affirming that Israel's bombing of the suburb of Haret Hreik, where Hizbullah had its headquarters, breaks humanitarian law.

His surprise may have reflected the time it took the world's media to catch on to the scale of the humanitarian crisis. But international concern about the humanitarian disaster inflicted on Lebanon grew this week, though pressure on Israel still falls short of Lebanese hopes. The UN launched a flash appeal on Monday for $150 million to ease the man-made crisis.

The UN also joined relief worker calls for Israel to guarantee a "humanitarian corridor" and safe access to blockaded ports so they can transport aid to desperate areas. "But only a cessation of hostilities can really make it safe for us and our humanitarian colleagues," Egeland told reporters.

Israel allowed the safe passage of the first UN aid convoy to the southern port city of Tyre on Wednesday, but its bombing of a United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) border post, which killed four UN soldiers, will have done little to ease fears. The convoy was carrying 90 tonnes of supplies, enough to feed 50,000 people for three months.

Israel's bombardment of densely populated, mainly Shia areas in the south and southern areas of Beirut had at the time of writing claimed 418 lives, the overwhelming majority civilians, injuring around 1,500 people. Hizbullah had killed 41 Israelis. Save the Children says nearly half of the Lebanese dead are children. Barely a day goes by without harrowing local television news reports that describe Israeli bombs wiping out whole families, often as they try to flee on Israeli orders.

Along with much of Lebanon's infrastructure, dozens of bridges and the southern and eastern road network have been systematically destroyed. "The widespread destruction of public infrastructure, including roads and bridges, as well as the targeting of commercial trucks, has seriously hampered relief operations," the UN statement this week said. Ambulances have also been fired upon, government and relief agencies say.

With the devastated southern Beirut suburbs now largely emptied of their inhabitants, the most urgent humanitarian crisis is in the south of Lebanon, in particular in villages between the Israeli border and Tyre. Thousands are thought to be trapped in the area, which Israel has set about clearing of people. There is a growing likelihood that a "security belt" will be imposed there, policed by an international force. It is not clear whether the displaced will be allowed to return to their homes.

Food and water supplies are dwindling in southern villages. Adnan Al-Hajj, economics editor of the respected daily As-Safir, said he had spoken to people in villages where enough food remained for a few days at most. One village had just 150 packets of bread for 4,000 people. "The hard thing is getting supplies to areas to which the roads have been cut -- there are places that have nothing," Al-Hajj said.

Taxi drivers have put their prices up because of the danger and need for long journeys on winding, sometimes unmade, side roads. A trip in a shared taxi that cost 5,000 Lebanese pounds (about $3) per person can now cost as much as $100, well out of reach for many poor southern Lebanese.

Sidon Mayor Abel-Rahman Bizri said medicines were a high priority for the displaced seeking shelter in the south's main city. "Most of the people we have here are elderly, women -- some pregnant -- and children, and many have medical needs, including trauma. We need safe routes to get supplies in and help people leave," he said. Echoing relief workers' complaints, he said the government was slow to react, "We had bad times with them initially", but the Health Ministry had now sent a few truckloads of drugs through.

Rising prices of such supplies as mattresses were putting a strain on resources, Bizri said. "We're willing to buy mattresses and blankets but the factories keep running out of them and prices have gone up." Many people have crowded into already overpopulated Palestinian refugee camps in the area for shelter.

Basic food prices have gone up across Lebanon and in Beirut food flies off shop shelves early in the day. Bombs have destroyed food factories and grain stores while the penchant of Israeli rockets for delivery trucks as well as the roads they drive has pushed up transport and delivery costs.

Sabah Issa, taking shelter in the basement of the western Hamra district's Al-Medina Theatre with 25 of her close family and relatives, described how she fled her sister's home in the southern town of Nabatieh after an Israeli rocket landed next door, killing her neighbour with her two babies. Leaflets dropped on the village by Israeli planes gave them a couple of hours to leave, but the bombs waited no longer than a few minutes, she says.

The villagers sped away en masse, with no time to collect their possessions. "I can't describe how terrifying it was to escape with them shelling us. Three cars right by us were hit, killing everyone inside." She had been staying in Nabatieh with her sister for the summer, so the family sought shelter in her own home in the southern suburbs. Within a day, they had to flee again. "Neither house remains standing," she says.

More than 100 schools and other public buildings in Lebanon have opened their doors to refugees. Relief workers say up to 1,000 people are living in some buildings designed for about 300 children. Food, sanitation and supplies such as mattresses are desperately needed as the number of displaced goes up by several thousand per day.

Several hundred people are sleeping rough in one of Beirut's few public parks, the Sanayeh Gardens in Hamra. Women, children and old people sit around on mattresses and sanitation is basic, although a simple shower was put in this week. "At least the kids are safe here and there's space for them to run around," says a woman who gives her name only as Samara. "But when the Israelis bomb the southern suburbs at night it's frightening, there's no roof to block out the noise."

About 20 per cent of Lebanon's population are on the road or in schools, or have left this tiny country. The UN reports the number of displaced as 700,000. With roughly 2,000 to 3,000 houses destroyed, according to economist Al-Hajj, and a much higher number partly ruined, no one knows yet where the legions of displaced and homeless will go once the new school term starts.

"Say there was a ceasefire today, where would they go, how would they live?" Al-Hajj asks. "Many of their homes no longer exist."