Lebanon

The UN Secretary-General on Saturday called on the international community to intensify support for the Government and people of Lebanon, warning that the south of the country “risks being turned into a wasteland.”

UN experts* today raised the alarm over a rapidly escalating displacement crisis in Lebanon, after intense Israeli airstrikes and evacuation warnings in southern Lebanon and parts of Beirut. … The experts said there were reports of more than 700,000 people displaced across Lebanon since the attacks began in early March, of which 200,000 are children. 

Israeli warplanes bombarded Beirut’s southern suburbs and southern Lebanon after Hezbollah launched drones and rockets at northern Israel on Wednesday night in a sharp escalation of the 10-day conflict. … Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said later that they had carried out some strikes with Hezbollah.

In light of the escalating situation in the Middle East and the evolving humanitarian situation in Lebanon, the EU has mobilised emergency humanitarian aid consisting of food and medical kits, shelter materials, recreation kits and winter clothing kits, to meet the urgent, rising humanitarian needs in Lebanon.

Lebanon's president has called for direct negotiations with Israel as part of a proposal to end the escalating conflict with Hezbollah, while sharply criticising the Iran-backed group for dragging the country into a wider regional war.

On day 10 of the war engulfing the Middle East, UN agencies on Monday reported massive displacement across the region, along with surging food and fuel prices that risk increasing hunger and suffering for the most vulnerable. In Lebanon alone, nearly 700,000 people including around 200,000 children have been forced from their homes, “adding to the tens of thousands already uprooted from previous escalations”, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said.

The Israeli military has told civilians living in a large swathe of southern Lebanon to leave their homes immediately and move north of the Litani River because of intended military action against Hezbollah. The sweeping orders came as hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed group continued to escalate. 

A Hezbollah official on Saturday said that "resistance" was the only option after Israeli strikes in Lebanon killed eight of its operatives. On Friday, the Israeli military said it had hit Hezbollah command centres in eastern Lebanon and targets linked to the Palestinian group Hamas in the south. … Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun also condemned the attacks, which came just days after the government said the army will start implementing the second phase of its plan to disarm Hezbollah in the south of the country.

UN peacekeepers temporarily suspended patrols and other activities along parts of the ‘Blue Line’ in southern Lebanon after the Israeli military said it would release what it described as a non-toxic chemical substance near the frontier, the UN said on Monday.

Lebanon will need some sort of international force after the withdrawal of the United Nations’s UNIFIL mission scheduled for 2027, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said during a visit to Paris on Saturday. … “We will always need an international presence in the south, and preferably a UN presence, given the impartiality and neutrality that only the UN can provide,” Nawaf Salam said the day after a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.