The renewed Israel-Hezbollah conflict has caused 83,847 people to flee southern Lebanon and other areas of Lebanon, Lebanese Social Affairs Minister Haneen Sayed said Thursday.
The conflict began to escalate when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel on Monday. Since then, the terrorist group has also launched drone attacks, and Israeli soldiers were wounded by anti-tank fire, according to reports on Wednesday.
More than 80,000 displaced people had registered in shelters, and there were now 399 shelters for the displaced across Lebanon, Sayed told reporters.
The Lebanese authorities said 72 people had been killed in the fighting.
“Tens of thousands of Lebanese people have been displaced following evacuation orders put out by the Israeli military, declaring 8% of the country’s land mass south of the Litani River as an active combat zone,” Saudi Arabia-based newspaper Arab News reported.
Meanwhile, Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said: “I am horrified by the impact the war in the region is having on civilians. My NRC colleagues across the region will stay and deliver humanitarian relief. This deadly escalation is compounding the suffering of people already hurt or impoverished by previous rounds of conflict.”
“In Lebanon, the Israeli bombing following Hezbollah’s attacks has killed and injured hundreds, and left 65,000 people forcibly displaced in improvised shelters, including mosques and schools,” he said. “Tens of thousands remain on the street or shelter with relatives or friends. [On] Wednesday, Israel issued a warning, calling on the entire population south of Lebanon’s Litani River to evacuate – a move that will disrupt many more lives.”
“Humanitarian operations were critically underfunded even before the latest escalation, forcing aid agencies like NRC to make impossible choices about who receives assistance and who does not,” Egeland said. “Vast resources are being mobilized for military action while humanitarian assistance remains severely underfunded... people of this region have endured enough, [and] “everything must be done to prevent further displacement, harm, or violence.”
UN claims Israel 'violates Lebanese sovereignty'
Meanwhile, Arab News reported: “AFP video footage showed what appeared to be two Israeli tanks amid residential buildings in Khiam, about six km. north of the border. The UN peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL, reported Israeli ‘movements and military activities’ on the Lebanese side, adding in a statement that they violated Lebanon’s ‘sovereignty and territorial integrity.’”
An airstrike had hit a Christian area in Hazmieh, a Beirut suburb, the report said.
“Some rooms were gutted in the strike, and wounded people received treatment in the lobby, AFP images showed... in Aramoun and Saadiyat, south of Beirut – two towns outside of Hezbollah’s traditional sphere of influence – the Health Ministry said Israeli strikes killed at least six people,” Arab News reported.
The conflict in Lebanon may be pushing Syrians to flee Lebanon back to Syria.
The Jdeidet Yabous border crossing with Lebanon was open, and large numbers of people are crossing to Syria “in light of the developments taking place in the region recently,” Beirut-based newspaper Al Akhbar, which is pro-Iranian, reported.
The report cited data from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which said about 10,000 Syrian citizens had returned from Lebanon to Syria.
“The crossing had been briefly halted following a warning from the Lebanese side to evacuate the area surrounding the crossing as a precautionary measure to protect civilians,” Al Akhbar reported.