The Israeli military escalation in Lebanon, which has left more than a thousand dead in just over a week, aggravates the suffering of the population of a country plunged into a deep socio-economic crisis since 2019, with 80 % of its population. residents living in poverty. And as the days go by, fears grow that the same “modus operandi” used in the Gaza Strip will be repeated, also on the diplomatic front. “The people of Lebanon, the people of Israel and the world cannot allow Lebanon to become another Gaza,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said a week ago, which Israel said persona non grata this Tuesday, by vetoing it. entry into the country.
For the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, António Guterres would not have condemned “unequivocally” the Iranian attack against Israel on Tuesday. He also criticizes him for not having “denounced the massacre” perpetrated by Hamas on October 7 a year ago, even though the diplomat did so on several occasions. At the end of last October, Israel even requested the resignation of Guterres for having recalled that the Hamas attacks were not born “in a vacuum”, in reference to the “suffocating occupation” to which the Palestinians are subjected.
As the diplomatic front heats up with this new clash with the UN, the Israeli government continues to send more troops to the units that began ground incursions into southern Lebanon on Tuesday, where the army admitted to having suffered eight victims this Wednesday during clashes with militiamen from the Shiite group Hezbollah.
A fifth of the Lebanese population displaced
The intense bombings which are repeated day after day in the south of Beirut, in the border area with Israel (south) and in the Bekaa Valley (east), have forced 1.2 million Lebanese out of six million inhabitants to leave their homes for other regions. of the country. Many are Syrians who have been refugees for years in Lebanon, the state with the highest number of refugees per capita in the world. There are 1.5 million Syrians and more than 200,000 Palestinians. According to the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Coordination (OCHA), nearly 800 temporary shelters have been opened for internally displaced people and 551 have reached maximum capacity. The United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) also opened ten of its facilities to accommodate internally displaced people, including Palestinians living in Lebanon and Palestinians who arrived from Syria due to the conflict in this country.
“Today, we urgently request more support to strengthen our current efforts to provide basic assistance to displaced civilians,” interim Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Tuesday, amid a crisis in supplies, basic necessities and even mattresses for people who had to flee their country. houses. Maliki recently described the current wave of displacements as the largest “in the entire history” of Lebanon. In recent days, hundreds of families have slept rough in central Beirut’s squares while others headed to the mountains surrounding the city with a few belongings.
“For nine days we have been in the most violent and deadliest attacks that Lebanon has suffered in decades. The situation is extremely difficult: a humanitarian catastrophe is occurring. The Lebanese government estimates there are more than a million people displaced, and many have had to flee quickly with only what they were carrying. The streets of Beirut are filled with people struggling to find shelter for their families. Humanitarian needs are growing rapidly. Now more than ever, urgent funds are needed to respond adequately,” Dalal Harb, spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Lebanon, explains to elDiario.es.
“We are from the border town of Khiam, in the south of the country. We were forced to leave our home about a year ago when the fighting started. And now we are forced to once again abandon the house in which we have taken refuge. We were just starting to adapt, we enrolled our children in a nearby school and everything disappeared,” says Alia, a refugee in a school in Barja, a small town in Mount Lebanon. “This trip is by far more difficult than the first. My children tell me that they would rather die under bombings than live like this. The school shook all night. For now, we consider ourselves safe here, but what happens if Israel decides to target schools? », Declares this nurse who has not been able to work for a year and whose testimony was collected by the Médecins sans frontières staff deployed on site.
International organizations have been warning for days of the disastrous consequences of the military escalation, in a context of enormous humanitarian aid needs already before the start of this latest Israeli offensive and an enormous shortage of resources. A situation contributed to by the political instability experienced by the country, which has led to a reduction in aid and foreign investment. Since October 2022, it is no longer possible to elect a new head of state or form a government.
Guterres, after speaking with Mikati on Tuesday and calling for respect for Lebanon’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity”, urged the international community to urgently mobilize in response to this morning’s call to Beirut to raise 426 million dollars (around 385 million euros). ) of the emergency humanitarian response. This week, the European Commission announced additional humanitarian aid of 10 million euros to help the Lebanese population.
Seeking refuge in Syria
A large part of the refugees welcomed in Lebanon are concentrated in the Bekaa Valley area, bordering Syria, where some 130,000 people have fled in recent days. Many of them – up to 60,000, according to the organization Save The Children – are children. And they flee to a place that is also not safe.
“This is an extremely dramatic situation. In a very short time, just one week, more than 130,000 people crossed the Syrian border from Lebanon, fleeing the bombings. 70% are Syrians, refugees in Lebanon for several years, after fleeing the war here, and who now find themselves in this difficult situation where they must choose between remaining in Lebanon, under bombing, or returning. his country, where there is still conflict and is economically devastated,” says Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR representative in Syria, currently in the Syrian town of Jdeidet Yabous, in a telephone conversation . with Lebanon.
“The remaining 30% of those who enter are Lebanese. And in the face of all this tragedy, something that moved me was seeing the extraordinary generosity of the Syrians who welcomed them into their home. The Syrians, explains the UNHCR representative, return “in extremely difficult circumstances, but they return to their country and they all have family or friends. Even if the houses of relatives or friends where they currently reside are also devastated. After 13 years of conflict, the needs are enormous and a real injection of support and aid is necessary from the international community.
Several months ago, the Lebanese and Syrian authorities resumed the process of so-called “voluntary” return of Syrian refugees to their country from Lebanon, which had aroused numerous criticisms and concerns from humanitarian organizations for fear of reprisals. against returnees. Amnesty International denounced in 2022 that the refugees were not “able to make a free and informed decision regarding their return” because in Lebanon they suffered discrimination, persecution, residence and work restrictions, and did not know not the situation they came into. Syria.
Vargas Llosa explains that UNHCR takes care of returnees once they arrive in the country but does not collaborate in the return program as such: “From neighboring countries, we do not organize returns because we do not consider that the conditions for this are met and there is “We have a long way to go before this can be done.”
“Refugees who fled their countries in search of safety are now facing the reality of being displaced again in Lebanon due to ongoing hostilities. This double displacement aggravates their vulnerability. Even though in recent days there has been an increase in border crossings between Lebanon and Syria, the majority of displaced people remain inside the country,” said Dalad Harb, UNHCR spokesperson in Lebanon. Having learned that some Syrians are being rejected by collective shelters hosting displaced people, the organization calls on “all actors to maintain and apply humanitarian principles, and to allow equal access to assistance”.
