Safe Access Critical to Helping Southern Lebanon

During last week's successful relief mission to Marjayoun, 240 families received emergency food parcels with flour, cooking oil, canned goods and basic food items designed to feed a family of ten for one week. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

As aerial bombardments and heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah continues in southern Lebanon, Mercy Corps continues to probe for opportunities to deliver aid to those trapped by the conflict.

On Friday, the agency opened a new warehouse in Jezzin, which is well-positioned in the middle southern half of the country - but far enough away from the fighting, at least for now - to act as a hub to supply beleaguered residents trapped by fighting further south. The warehouse also serves some of the estimated 11,000 displaced people currently staying in Jezzin, handing out 240 family food parcels on its first day of operation.

Earlier, on August 1, two Mercy Corps truckloads of critical food supplies and blankets had successfully reached the town of Marjayoun, one of the first organized relief convoys to reach that devastated part of southern Lebanon since the current crisis began. In the days that followed, a Mercy Corps convoy delivered aid to the coastal town of Sidon, and supplied two aid convoys that went deeper into southern Lebanon.

But access to southern Lebanon remains precarious. The Mercy Corps and other relief trucks that delivered aid in Sidon intended to drop their loads further south, to Tyre, but stopped because of bombing along the coastal road.

According to the New York Times, Israel has warned all civilians to move north of the Litani River, and has also said that any vehicle traveling on roads in the south can be fired upon at any time of the day or night unless it is an aid convoy approved by Israel.

Most of those who remain south of the Litani River are considered to ill, disabled or poor to leave.

Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

"As far as getting down to the need is greatest, we just keep probing, but we're not going south of the Litani River under these circumstances," Mercy Corps' Middle East Program Director David Holdridge told NPR on Wednesday.

Holdridge, who is based in Beirut, added that Mercy Corps will look to deliver aid "as far as we can where there is a reasonable certainty that the nature of our mission will be respected and that our drivers and (our team) will stay safe."

During last week's successful relief mission to Marjayoun, 240 families received emergency food parcels with flour, cooking oil, canned goods and basic food items designed to feed a family of ten for one week. Several dozen beneficiary families have fled to Marjayoun from points further south, and are temporarily residing in local schools. Approximately 1,500 blankets were also distributed to these and other families.

Marjayoun, which had a pre-conflict population 12,000, is the principal town in a region populated by Shiites, Druze and Christians just south of the Litani River, close to the Israeli and Syrian borders. Just last year, Mercy Corps helped rebuild the ancient cobblestone marketplace in the center of town, part of the agency's multi-million-dollar effort to boost tourism in southern Lebanon.

Help us continue these lifesaving aid convoys and respond quickly to emerging needs by donating to the Lebanon Crisis Fund.