UN humanitarian officials called on Tuesday for urgent action to stop the escalating conflict in Lebanon from spiraling into a similar scene of devastation as seen in Gaza.
"We need to do everything we can to stop that from happening," said Matthew Hollingworth, Lebanon country director for the United Nations' World Food Programme.
Speaking from Beirut, he told a press briefing in Geneva that he spent the first half of the year coordinating WFP's operations in Gaza before taking the helm of its Lebanon office, and was deeply concerned by the similarities.
"It is in my mind from the time I wake until the time I sleep, that we could go into the same sort of spiral of doom... We shouldn't allow that to happen," he said.
'Same Patterns'
Hollingworth said many people were fleeing because they "have watched over the last year as the war in Gaza has continued and neighborhoods have been decimated and pounded, and that is deep in their gut, in their hearts, in their minds."
James Elder, spokesman for the UN children's agency UNICEF, warned that "the commonalities are unfortunately absolutely there to be seen, whether it is displacement on the ground, impact upon children or language being used [...] (to) soften the realities on the ground."
"We are seeing the same patterns that we saw in Gaza," added Jeremy Laurence of the UN rights office.
"The devastation is beyond belief for all people in Lebanon as it is in Gaza. We can't let this happen again."
'Significant Needs'
Humanitarians are working to address the soaring needs, but Hollingworth insisted that what was needed was to "de-escalate."
While WFP is currently able to reach around 150,000 people a day, they "need to be reaching, at this point, almost a million people per day," he said.
At the same time, he highlighted that 1,900 hectares of agricultural land had been burned in southern Lebanon over the past year, mainly in the past couple of weeks, while 12,000 hectares of productive farmland had been abandoned.
"We have very significant needs moving forward," Hollingworth said, lamenting that the WFP was facing a $115 million funding gap to cover the towering needs over the next three months.
The World Health Organization meanwhile said it had registered 16 attacks on health care in Lebanon since mid-September, leaving 65 health care workers dead and 40 injured.
At the same time, five of the country's hospitals are now non-functional and four are only partially functional, Ian Clarke, WHO's deputy incident manager in the country, told reporters, speaking via video link from Beirut.
Nearly 100 primary health care facilities had also been forced to close, he said, warning that with limited access to care, "we are facing a situation where there is a much higher risk of disease outbreaks."
With AFP
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