GENEVA: UN officials said on Friday most of Lebanon’s nearly 900 shelters were full and that people fleeing Israeli military strikes were increasingly sleeping out in the open in streets or in public parks.
“Most of the nearly 900 government established collective shelters in Lebanon have no more capacity,” the UN refugee agency’s Rula Amin told a Geneva press briefing. She said that they were working with local authorities to find more sites and that some hotels were opening their doors.
“People are sleeping in public parks, on the street, the beach,” said Mathieu Luciano, the International Organization For Migration’s office head in Lebanon. He confirmed that most shelters were full, including those in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, but said some others had space.
He voiced concern about the fate of tens of thousands of mostly female live-in domestic workers in Lebanon whom he said were being “abandoned” by their employers. “They face very limited shelter options,” he said, adding that many of them came from Egypt, Sudan and Sri Lanka.
Lebanese authorities say more than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced and nearly 2,000 people killed since the start of Israeli war with Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group over the last year, most of them over the past two weeks.
On Friday, Israeli strikes sealed off Lebanon’s main border crossing with Syria, blocking the way for vehicles, although the UNHCR’s Amin said that some were crossing on foot.
“We could see that some people were walking, desperate to flee Lebanon, and so they walked actually through that destroyed road,” she said.
Most of Lebanon’s displacement shelters are full, UN says
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Most of Lebanon’s displacement shelters are full, UN says
- Lebanese authorities say more than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced and nearly 2,000 people killed since the start of Israeli war
Netanyahu says UK-French-Canada condemnation gives ‘huge prize’ to Hamas
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday hit back at condemnation of his country’s military offensive in Gaza by the leaders of France, Canada and Britain saying they had given a “huge prize” to Hamas.
“By asking Israel to end a defensive war for our survival before Hamas terrorists on our border are destroyed and by demanding a Palestinian state, the leaders in London, Ottawa and Paris are offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7 while inviting more such atrocities,” Netanyahu said in a statement, referring to the October 2023 attack that set off the Gaza war.
Palestinian hospital chief calls for pressure on Israel
HELSINKI: An East Jerusalem hospital chief told AFP on Monday that Gaza was in a “catastrophic” state after weeks of a complete blockade of humanitarian aid and called on countries to act to end the suffering of civilians.
Fadi Atrash, chief executive of the Augusta Victoria-Hospital in East Jerusalem — which helps Palestinians from the occupied territories and Gaza — said he could no longer “find the words” to describe the crisis faced by people in war-torn Gaza.
“We are facing a very, very critical and catastrophic situation,” he said, with all components of the health care system destroyed, and health care workers “running out of energy.”
Augusta Victoria, which had a hospital in Gaza that has been destroyed in Israeli bombings now provides health care in Gaza with the limited resources available, Atrash said.
Atrash visited Finland — which has not recognized Palestine as a state — on Monday as part of a tour of the Nordic countries.
“My main message for the Nordic countries is to put pressure to stop the war, to stop the killing.”
Humanitarian food, medical and fuel supplies have been blocked from entering Gaza for 11 weeks, and the World Health Organization has warned that two million people face starvation.
Finland’s President Alexander Stubb joined other European leaders on Monday to call on Israel to guarantee the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Stubb also said “forced displacement of populations is a war crime and cannot form part of any solution,” in a post on X.
Israel this month approved an expanded military offensive in Gaza but has agreed to let limited aid into Gaza.
Gaza civil defense says 91 killed in Israeli strikes Monday
GAZA CITY: A Gaza civil defense official said that 91 people were killed in strikes and attacks throughout Monday as Israel steps up an offensive in the Palestinian territory.
The deaths had been recorded since the early hours of Monday, according to Mohammed Al-Mughayyir, an official in the civil defense agency of the Hamas-run territory. The department had earlier given a toll of 52 dead.
Yemen’s Houthis threaten Israeli port
SANAA: Yemen’s Houthis said Monday that they would target Haifa port in Israel as part of a “naval blockade” in response to Israeli escalation in the Gaza war.
The Houthis would “begin working to enforce a naval blockade of the port of Haifa,” said military spokesman Yehya Saree.
“All companies with ships present in or heading to this port are hereby notified that, as of the time of this announcement, the aforementioned port has been included in the target bank,” the Houthi spokesman added.
The move was “in response to the Israeli enemy’s escalation of its brutal aggression against our people and in Gaza,” he said, adding their attacks on Israel would “cease once the aggression on Gaza ends and the blockade is lifted.”
Earlier on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country will “take control” of the whole of Gaza, as rescuers reported dozens killed in a newly intensified offensive.
One SDF fighter killed in attack by Daesh in eastern Syria
- SDF reached an agreement in March to integrate with the Syrian government
- Syria’s new authorities have clashed with Daesh fighters, particularly in the east
CAIRO: The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a militia group led by Kurdish fighters, said on Monday that one of its fighters was killed and another injured in an attack by Daesh in Syria’s eastern Deir el-Zor region.
The SDF was the main fighting force allied to the United States in Syria during fighting that defeated Daesh in 2019 after the group declared a caliphate across swathes of Syria and Iraq.
The SDF reached an agreement in March to integrate with the Syrian government, now led by former militants who toppled President Bashar Assad last year.
Syria’s new authorities have clashed with Daesh fighters, particularly in the east. Last month, Daesh killed five SDF fighters in one of the deadliest recent attacks against the group.
