“Civilians in the south of Lebanon and parts of the Bekaa [Valley] are really living with the same fear for their lives as before the ceasefire and more are being forced to flee…many of the displaced are not even allowed to return by the Israeli army in areas it controls in the south,” said Karolina Lindholm Billing, UN refugee agency (UNHCR) Representative in Lebanon.
Since 17 April, at least 380 people have been killed despite a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, the agency said.
In addition, homes and public services have suffered “widespread destruction” across large parts of the country, affecting hundreds of thousands of people, the UNHCR official reported.
She described meeting families who had tried to return to their homes in Nabatieh and Tyre after the US-brokered ceasefire came into effect, only to find twisted masonry and chaos.
“They were even more devastated than before after seeing their homes completely destroyed,” Ms. Lindholm Billing explained. “One man, he showed me a photo on his phone of his demolished house. And he’s now back inside a sleeping bag on the floor in a classroom that serves as a collective shelter with nothing to return to and a very uncertain future.”
Paramedics are not a target
Civilians and emergency workers are protected under international humanitarian law, but that hasn’t prevented the targeting of non-combatants who live in fear of being killed every day.
“I want to share one clear message from Lebanese Red Cross volunteers: they are asking for protection,” said Tommaso Della Longa, spokesperson for UN partner, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). While visiting volunteer paramedics in Lebanon last week he said that “every time they go on an ambulance mission, they hug each other and say goodbye to one another, unsure if they will return safely.”
In the last two months, two IFRC Lebanon paramedics have been killed or died from injuries sustained while responding to callouts in southern Lebanon: Youssef Assaf and Hassan Badawi.
“In a normal world, Red Cross volunteers would not need flak jackets or helmets in ambulances, the emblem should protect them,” said Mr. Della Longa. “But this is not a normal world. In Lebanon, Youssef and Hassan were killed while saving lives. The emblem did not protect them, nor their protective equipment.”
Massive upheaval
Across Lebanon today, around 1.8 million people have been uprooted by the war between Hezbollah fighters and Israel, which erupted once again on 2 March when the Israeli military responded to Hezbollah rocket fire, three days after Israel and the US began bombing Iran.
According to UNHCR, thousands of people have remained in areas under the control of the Israeli military in southern Lebanon. UN humanitarian convoys continue to deliver assistance to people in these hard-to-reach areas south of the Litani River. “But access is a challenge” for aid teams and securing people’s basic needs remains extremely difficult, Ms. Lindholm Billing explained.
“Families forced from their homes speak not only of loss but of their dignity being taken away,” stressed IFRC’s Mr. Della Longa. He explained that restoring people’s dignity “is central to the response”.
Delivering aid is important, but so too is “listening, involving people and enabling them to support one another”, he said, adding that the ceasefire “has not restored norms or livelihoods, nor does it guarantee basic needs such as water, food or healthcare”.
