UN official warns of catastrophic civilian toll in Lebanon conflict

Civilians are bearing the brunt of a “truly catastrophic” situation in Lebanon, a senior U.N. official said, urging respect for the rules of war nearly two weeks since Israel launched a major offensive against the armed group Hezbollah.

With around 1 million people in Lebanon impacted, Imran Riza, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, said the pace of displacement since Sept. 23 had exceeded worst-case scenarios, and too much damage was being done to civilian infrastructure.

“What we saw from Sept. 23 on is truly catastrophic,” Riza said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday. He was referring to the day when Israel dramatically ramped up airstrikes in Lebanon, killing more than 500 people in a single day, according to Lebanese government figures.

“The level of trauma, the level of fear amongst the population, has been extreme,” he said.

Israel says its campaign against the heavily armed, Iran-backed Hezbollah aims to secure the return home of Israelis evacuated from areas near the Lebanese border as a result of nearly a year of Hezbollah fire into northern Israel.

The Lebanese government says around 1.2 million people have been displaced by Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, the southern suburbs of Beirut and other parts of the country. Some have been killed in Israeli strikes after having been displaced.

“You’ve got people being displaced from one place to another, thinking they were going to a safe place, and then that being struck,” Riza said.

Riza said 97 medical and emergency workers had been killed – the majority of them in the last 10 days. There has been too much damage to civilian infrastructure, and civilians have been “bearing the great brunt of what’s been going on”, he said.

He noted that international humanitarian law requires that humanitarians be allowed to access people in need and that civilian infrastructure and water systems be protected.

“This is what we call for when we’re saying respect the rules of war in this,” he said. “Unfortunately, we are seeing a situation where we have to go back to everybody and advocate for these basics in terms of protecting civilians.”

The conflict began nearly a year ago when Hezbollah opened fire in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas, at the start of the Gaza war. It marks the worst conflict since Hezbollah fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006.

Riza and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Tuesday launched a $426 million appeal to mobilize resources for civilians affected by the conflict.

Lebanon was already suffering myriad crises before this conflict began.

As a result, Riza said Lebanon was less well placed to deal with conflict now than in 2006: “People don’t have buffers the way they had in 2006, on the other hand, the institutions that are there to help them are much weaker.”