SOS Lebanon
the war on Lebanon is taking its toll on the civilian population, Lucy Fielder reports on Lebanon's worst humanitarian crisis.
It looked like a breakthrough, albeit a late one. Israel's promise on Sunday to allow a 48- hour respite in its bombing of south Lebanon to let aid supplies reach the worst-hit areas gave hamstrung aid agencies a glimmer of hope. The United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross prepared four convoys but had to cancel or turn back. "It was either because of ongoing hostilities or a red light to our operations," said ICRC spokesman Hisham Hassan. A promised 'humanitarian corridor' to the south has also proven a chimera. "Access is still very difficult to most areas of the south, including to villages that we have not been able to reach for three weeks,"Hassan said.
Soha Boustani of the United Nations children's fund UNICEF said they saw little difference after the ceasefire. "It did not change much," she said. "Yesterday we were only able to get one convoy down when there was supposed to be a ceasefire."
Hassan said reports emerging from the isolated villages spoke of a desperate situation. "Some villagers have been drinking out of ponds for collecting rainwater, we are hearing unconfirmed reports of malaria, we heard about a family that has been without bread for ten days now." According to the UN World Food Programme, about 165,000 people remain in areas of heavy fighting in the south.
World outrage and pressure for a ceasefire has grown in response to the killing of at least 54 civilians, including many children asleep in their beds, by an Israeli airstrike on Qana on Sunday. Aid groups say their priority is an immediate temporary truce to get aid to the worst-hit areas, while wrangling over the terms of a ceasefire continues.
The aid convoys cannot move unless they receive the go-ahead from both Israel and Hizbollah, and neither has been forthcoming in the last few days, according to a World Food Programme WFP statement. Israel's shelling of the south, which did not completely let up even during the temporary ceasefire, continues to put aid convoys at risk. Displaced people arriving at improvised shelters at schools and other public buildings tell of terrifying journeys under Israeli bombs -- all agree that Israel is firing not just at heavy vehicles, but also at civilian cars.
The number of displaced in this ruinous war has reached 900,000 people, according to the United Nations, which is more than a fifth of Lebanon's population. As many of their houses have been destroyed -- television pictures of Bint Jbeil showed it almost completely flattened after fighting there earlier this week -- rehousing and resettling people will be one of the most serious issues facing Lebanon for a long time to come. While Lebanese society has launched a mammoth civil operation to help distribute aid and man the schools, many people fear that without a great deal of help and a quick and comprehensive solution, the presence of large numbers of mainly Shi’ite displaced could place a burden on local communities and eventually strain ever-fragile communal relations.
Those at the schools are at least safe, but conditions are unpleasant and washing facilities few. "There is nowhere to give the baby a proper bath," said Khadija Aryan, holding up her three-month old baby Qazim at one school in the eatern Beirut Tabaris area. Qazim was crying constantly because of a bout of diarrhoea, his twin brother slept on a pillow next to him.
"When I go to the schools where the displaced are being housed, I am thinking about all the houses and flats that have been completely destroyed," Boustani says, and I wonder what will happen to them."
Thousands of displaced took advantage of the slight lull in air raids earlier this week to flee across the border to Syria. The WFP launched a relief effort for 7,000 Lebanese in Syria this week, warning that numbers were rising and would probably reach around 20,000.
Aid donations have rocketed, though without a ceasefire their impact on the south can only be limited. Saudi Arabia, widely seen here as giving tacit backing to the Israeli strikes, has nonetheless been a generous donator of aid -- giving $2 million to the WFP, which the organisation said would cover nearly a quarter of the food requirements in its emergency three-month operation. Jordan has also flown in supplies.
Perhaps because of the destruction of densely populated swathes of Lebanon, the harm to children has been particularly striking feature of this war. Boustani said she could barely keep up with the spiralling casualty count. "But we believe that half the displaced and more than a third of the dead and injured are children," she said. Save the Children said last week that children then accounted for 45 percent of the civilian death toll.
UNICEF has distributed play kits at schools, and volunteers at the schools improvise games to give a semblance of normality to the shaken young lives in their care. "Trauma is a major aspect of this war," Boustani says.
"Children who have seen such violence, who have seen their loved ones killed, who have suffered displacement, will never be the same again."
Caption: An elderly Lebanese woman sits amidst the rubble in Bint Jbeil. The border town in south Lebanon has been targetted by heavy Israeli bombardment during the past week
C a p t i o n 2: An elderly Lebanese woman sits amidst the rubble in Bint Jbeil. The border town in south Lebanon has been targetted by heavy Israeli bombardment during the past week
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/806/re61.htm