The Lebanese Prime Minister, Najib Mikati told the press this Sunday that close to a million people could have been displaced due to the unprecedented campaign of attacks that Israel maintains against the south and east of the country, and the suburbs of Beirut.
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“The number is large, it is estimated that one million people were forced to move from one place to another during the last few days. It is considered the largest displacement operation in Lebanon in all history,” the leader said in a news conference.
“The management of this displacement not only depends on finding shelter and food for these people, but there are other things such as guaranteeing a health service in these reception centers to avoid the spread of diseases or the problem of garbage accumulation,” he explained. Mikati.
Lebanon, with a population estimated at less than 6 million, has been forced to open hundreds of shelters for displaced people since last Monday Israel began to intensively bombard the main strongholds of the Shiite group Hezbollah.
Managing this displacement not only depends on finding shelter and food for these people.
According to the latest situation report published this Sunday by the presidency of the Council of Ministers, 116,100 of the internally displaced people are housed in 777 centers and schools authorized by the authorities, of which more than 500 have reached their maximum capacity.
Various NGOs have denounced the lack of basic services in the shelters and a shortage of space that in some cases forces several families to be accommodated in the same classroom.
Mikati explained that they ordered the customs department to lift taxes on humanitarian aid and donations from abroad so that the supplies “arrive directly to the State”, and the entry of the much-needed products is facilitated.
In the last two weeks, Israel has launched a series of unprecedented attacks against the main strongholds of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, which have already left more than a thousand dead, 6,000 injured and around a million internally displaced, according to official data.
One of them killed the group’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, on the outskirts of Beirut on Friday.
Mikati also considered this Sunday that diplomacy is the only way out in the midst of the Israeli attacks.
“We have no other option than diplomacy, from the beginning we have asked for the complete implementation of resolution 1701 (of the UN Security Council) and the Government is committed to it (…) If the war is prolonged, in the end we will return to resolution 1701,” he said in a press conference.
“Lebanon has faith in the international community, in international legitimacy and in the UN, and does not believe in the law of the strongest,” added the leader.
Mikati recalled that his Government has been calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon for “seven or eight months,” long before the clashes that began almost a year ago between Hezbollah and Israel recently led to a wave of violence unprecedented in decades.
“The ceasefire in Gaza would lead to a ceasefire in Lebanon and the inhabitants would return to their homes in northern Israel, and everything would return to normal while we take time to implement resolution 1701,” the prime minister reiterated. .
Hezbollah insisted in recent months that it would only stop its fight against the Jewish state when the Gaza war ended, as the international community advocated for the implementation of the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war between the parties.
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