GENEVA: The Red Cross on Tuesday urgently appealed for more than $115 million to address towering needs in Lebanon amid Israel’s dramatic escalation in hostilities targeting Hezbollah.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said it had launched an appeal for 100 million Swiss francs ($115.8 million) to help provide immediate and long-term relief to around 600,000 people affected by the conflict.
The money would also go to supporting the vital ambulance services run by the Lebanese Red Cross (LRC) in the conflict-torn country.
“Humanitarian needs in Lebanon are growing by the day,” IFRC Secretary-General Jagan Chapagain, who is currently visiting Beirut, said in a statement.
“The funds raised in this appeal will allow the Lebanese Red Cross to sustain their life-saving programmes and to reach far more people with far more positive impact,” he said.
“The needs are immense. I urge potential donors to do what they can to help contribute.”
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The appeal comes after Israel escalated its air raids on Hezbollah strongholds in south Lebanon, Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley on September 23, after nearly a year of cross-border fire, and a week later sent ground troops into southern Lebanon.
At least 3,002 people have been killed in Lebanon since clashes between Hezbollah and Israel began last October, the health ministry said, including at least 1,964 since September 23, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
The war has also pushed more than a million people to flee their homes, with over 800,000 people displaced within the country, according to UN figures, and over half a million having crossed into Syria, most of them Syrians, according to Lebanese authorities.
The IFRC highlighted the importance of scaling up aid at a time when so many people are displaced and winter is approaching.
“We are seeing a huge need for basic goods to help the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled their homes,” Lotte Ruppert, operations manager for the IFRC in Beirut, said in the statement.
“Going back to their houses is not an option at this moment, as the conflict areas are still very dangerous. On top of that, we are concerned for the safety of all health workers, including LRC volunteers, especially in the south of Lebanon.”
IFRC appeal comes after a donor conference in Paris last month raked in around $800 million in pledges for aid in Lebanon.
But the United Nations cautioned last week that those pledges still needed to be transformed into cash, and warned that a separate UN appeal for $426 million for Lebanon launched more than a month ago was still just 17 percent funded.