Regional Director for the Middle East and North said Africa In the organization, Othman Al-Bilbisi: “With this wave of displacement, we see huge needs. The situation is catastrophic.”
Israel has intensified its air strikes on Lebanon since September 23, targeting what it says are Hezbollah infrastructure and facilities in southern and eastern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Since then, the continuous bombing has killed more than 1,200 people and displaced nearly a million others.
Al-Bilbisi told Agence France-Presse during a visit to Beirut on Thursday: “Lebanon Needs more support. “What has been provided so far is minimal and does not meet the needs.”
Confrontations began between Israel andHezbollah The day after the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, 2023, the Lebanese party opened what it calls a “support front” for the Gaza Strip.
Othman Al-Bilbisi explained that International Organization for Migration It “verified and tracked” about 690,000 displaced people in Lebanon, noting that about 400,000 others have left the country, many of them to neighboring Syria.
According to the government and the International Organization for Migration, about a quarter of the displaced (more than 185,000 people) in Lebanon live in official shelters such as schools.
The International Organization for Migration said that another quarter of the displaced rented housing, while about 47 percent lived in “host places,” with many of them staying with relatives, while some slept on the streets and had nowhere to go.
Al-Bilbisi said: “It is really sad to see this (displacement) again Lebanon“, in a country that suffered from a civil war between 1975 and 1990, and a conflict that lasted about a month between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
He added, as smoke rose from Israeli air strikes in the southern suburb of Beirut, that residents fled their homes “with nothing, as a result of fear, and now they have to rebuild everything again.”
Al-Bilbisi explained that the United Nations appealed to the international community to provide $426 million to address the issue Humanitarian crisis In the country over the next three months, including $32 million to the International Organization for Migration to help about 400,000 people.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Friday that the appeal had raised only 12 percent of its goal, or $51 million.
Since 2019, Lebanon has witnessed a prolonged economic collapse, during which the majority of the population has fallen below the poverty line.
