VARIOUS: Much needed aid begins to arrive in Lebanon

Humanitarian aid operations moved into full gear on Saturday (July 29) as aid shipments from various countries and international organisations arrived in Beirut carrying supplies for the 800,000 people displaced by Israel's 18-day bombardment of Lebanon. In the early hours of Saturday morning, Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF), and the International Committee of the Red Cross sent their first shipments of medicines and surgical kits from the island of Cyprus. "Thirty tonnes of medicine, and some other items, there is some dialysis medicine, surgical kits, also some water and sanitation," said MSF project leader Marc Ferriere, as the ship carrying the MSF relief was being loaded and prepared for its journey to Beirut from Larnaca. The U.S. HSV Swift, a fast military catamaran which has shipped aid to survivors of the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, also arrived in Beirut on Saturday carrying 20,000 blankets, 2,000 tarpaulins and seven one-tonne of medical kits to support 10,000 people for three months. "We've already seen in some of these areas outbreaks of diarrhoea in small children and we are very concerned about escalating health crisis from water borne illnesses, things can result in hepatitis, and different kind of diseases that can really affect the most vulnerable of the population, children, nursing mothers and the elderly," said Cassandra Nelson of Mercycorps aid Organisation about the humanitarian crisis unfolding the war-torn country. Washington has pledged 30 million US dollars to help Lebanon which Israel has pounded with airstrikes since Hizbollah militants killed eight Israeli troops and captured two more in a July 12 cross-border raid. The U.S. aid arrived in Lebanon a day after President George W. Bush apologised to British Prime Minister Tony Blair for using a British airport for transiting "bunker-busting" bombs to Israel. The U.S. supplies were destined for the Chouf mountains southeast of Beirut where at least 100,000 people have taken refugee. The United Nations has been running aid convoys to towns in southern Lebanon, such as Tyre, Sidon and Jezzine, but getting food and medical supplies safely to the town and villages at the heart of the fighting is proving difficult. Convoys carrying aid for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), arrived in Beirut after crossing through the Syrian border, the first land crossing for regular humanitarian aid to assist the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by Israel's strikes. Since the crisis began almost three weeks ago and the continuos bombing of roads and bridges, movement on the ground has been difficult and dangerous. Aid workers say they are finding it impossible to get medical supplies and food safely to isolated villages in southern Lebanon due to the Israeli bombardment. "We finally after nearly two weeks succeed in opening up a land root, an international land root, across from Syria. The border is now open to humanitarian traffic, we got the first convoy through today, carrying essentially UNHCR supplies and UNICEF supplies," said Robert Lodge, a spokesman for WFP. On Friday, WFP sent two convoys to southern Lebanon carrying wheat, flour, meat and blankets for UN and other international and humanitarian organisations. Late on Saturday, an Israeli air strike hit Lebanon's main road to Damascus just 1 km from the border with Syria, cutting the highway in both directions, Lebanese television announced on Saturday (July 29) night. Three air strikes hit the road between Lebanese and Syrian immigration offices, but on the Lebanese side of the border. There was no information on casualties. The Israeli military said it had struck the road to cut arms supply routes from Syria to Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Israeli aircraft have been pounding southern Lebanon, southern Beirut and other parts of the country in an 18-day-long war against Hizbollah.

ITN Source | July 30, 2006

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