A photograph shows the site of an overnight Israeli airstrike that targeted the Haret Hreik neighbourhood of Beirut’s southern suburbs. AFP
UN teams on the ground described how civilians continue to endure intensified Israeli strikes.
Israeli strikes on areas inhabited by civilians usually come with little to no warning.
“The attack in Bashura in central Beirut last week, there was a warning issued, but maybe less than an hour before the strike hit, and it was very early in the morning,” said Karolina Lindholm Billing, UNHCR's representative in Lebanon.
A second strike “close to several collective shelters hosting displaced (people), gave ‘no warning, it was a direct target…as far as I'm aware, there have been no sites designated as safe where civilians have been advised to go to,” Billing added.
“There is no safe space” for people to go – including the capital, according to Marcoluigi Corsi of the UN Children’s Fund.
Corsi added that “although the evacuation order has been issued for the southern part of Beirut…the strikes actually happen also in other parts of Beirut.”
Since 2 March, at least 1,116 people have been killed, and another 3,229 were wounded. Among the casualties of the ongoing Israeli attacks on Lebanon were 83 women and 121 children, while another 454 women and 399 children were injured.
The war has triggered mass displacement in Lebanon, with UN aid teams estimating that more than one million people, around 1 in 5, have fled their homes in just a few weeks.
Gielan El Messiri of UN Women stated, “I have met women and girls forced to make devastating choices, fleeing their homes at night without a clear destination, losing their families’ entire livelihoods and leaving behind their sense of safety and everything that is familiar.”
Humanitarian agencies' access to Lebanon, especially in the south, has also been severely limited by the repeated Israeli attacks on vital infrastructure.
“Access…is also becoming increasingly difficult because the destruction of key bridges in the south has cut off entire districts and is isolating over 150,000 people and severely limiting humanitarian access with essential items to reach them,” Billing said.
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