Dr. Guerrero

THE INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN MIDDLE EAST

By Dr Ramiro Anzit Guerrero

An Israeli bombing killed 26 Syrians in the border between Lebanon and Syria, whereas the combats to the south intensified after a series of incursions near Beirut that destroyed four vital bridges.

At the same time, the sanitary situation got worse in the southern Lebanon, and the UN has put in guard against the possibility of epidemics later near of four weeks of a war that killed at least 955 civilians and whom a million of displaced have almost.  The UN requests the intervention of an international force as well.

In the south of Lebanon, the fighter bombers carried out incursions against highways and houses in the region of Saidon (45 km to the south of Beirut) and to Nabatiyé (75 km to the south of the capital). The Israeli bombings on Lebanon caused at least 955 deaths and 3293 wounded, according to an established balance Friday 4 of August, from official sources. 868 civilians died at least, 30% of which were young minors of 12 years, as well as the 27 military and Lebanese policemen from the beginning of the Israeli offensives of last 12 July, indicated  the Commission of aids of the Lebanese Government. On the other hand, the Hizboullah announced the death of 48 of its combatants, and the allied group shiiat Amal announced the death of seven militants. In addition, the conflict cost the life of four observers of the UN and a member of the provisional Force of the United Nations (FINUL).

The Commission of aids needs that its balance talks about "identified corpses and it does not consider people who are alive under the ruins". No number of victims was available until Friday in the evening in the southern suburb of Beirut, bastion of the Hizballah, where they were attacked whole districts. Some victims less still were al under the ruins of a some thirty houses in the Lebanon meridional, indicated Lebanese Civil defense. As well, one moved to 913,760 people of the confrontations from the beginning. 220.000 of them left the territory Lebanese, according to the Commission of aids, between which approximately 100,000 are foreign or with double nationality.

Israel has intensified Friday 4 of August its bombings in the Lebanon, with the purpose of destroying five bridges on the main freeway of the north of the country that it connected with Syria. For the first time, Israeli aviation affected the Christian districts, to the north of Beirut, destroying four bridges on the main coastal freeway that connected the Lebanese capital with Syria, isolating still more to the Lebanon whereas the blockade marine and aerial Israeli widely closed the other joining points to the country.  The bridges were attacked to stop the transport of arms coming from Syria, according to a spokesman of the Israeli army.

This axis of wagon was a "umbilical cord" for the transport of the humanitarian aid, whose convoys are going to have to use secondary roads, declared to the Associated Press Christiane Berthiaume, one of the person in charge of Alimentos the World-wide Program (PMA) of the United Nations. Other bombings, near Al-Qaa, not far from the Syria border, caused at least 28 deaths, according to declared people in charge of the Lebanese security. The Syria official news agency (HEALTHY) affirmed that in the attack 33 agricultural employees who worked in a deposit vegetable refrigerator, of which would have died  23 were Syria. A spokesman of Tsahal (Israeli Armed Forces), Jacob Dallal, announced that the Israeli army suspected that the deposit was being used to store arms.

The airplanes of Tsahal also continued striking the south of the Lebanon and the Southern districts of Beirut. According to Lebanese people in charge of the services of security, two houses in Taïbeh and Aïta were destroyed al-Chaab, to some kilometers of the Israeli border, being buried  57 people in the ruins. As well, violent combats were continued in the south of Lebanon between the Israeli soldiers and the combatants of the Hizballah, whom they affirmed to have killed to several soldiers near the localities of Aita al-Shab and Markaba. The Israeli army confirmed the death of three of its men, died by an antitank missile of the Hizballah, whereas it hurt other two military.

The intensification of the Israeli offensive takes place immediately after the threats of the head of the Hizballah, Sheij Hassan Nasrallah, to affect to the city of Tel Aviv, and by to have less thrown a hundred of rockets on the north of Israel in than one hour, having caused eight deaths. One was one of the heaviest balance from the beginning of the Israeli offensive against the Hizballah in the Lebanon, from the 12 of July.

Twenty-four days of violent combats did not make stop the shots of rockets and more than 200 of these projectiles, fell 45 in less than half an hour, reaching Friday 4 of August the north of Israel. Three rockets fell near the city of Hadera, in approximately 75 kilometers to the south of the Lebanese border. Rockets of the Hizballah had never fallen so to the south of the border. There would not have been victims. However, according to the police, if three  Israeli Arabs in the localities of Mughar, Majdel Krum and Dir died the Assad.

Altogether, near 2,500 rockets they reached Israel from the 12 of July. According to a calculation of the United Nations, the combats caused at least to 863 hurt deaths and 3,280 in the Lebanon, in their majority of the civilians. 914,000 people were moved towards other countries of the zone, mainly Syria, according to Horseradish tree Negus of the Office of coordination of humanitarian Subjects. In Israel, the balance ascends to 74 deaths, 44 soldiers and 30 civilians. Diplomatic level, the United States and France continued negotiating a project, and even two, on resolutions. A one on the cease of the hostilities and political agreement, another one on the unfolding of an international force. Washington and Paris, explained added ambassador Chinese Liu Zhenmin, "made progresses on some aspects". But divergences subsist about the fact of knowing if a stop to the fire is necessary "in the first place or in the first place an unfolding" of an international force in the south of the Lebanon. France rejects the shipment of soldiers while the hostilities continue since he would be essential to reach a political agreement, "preliminary and inevitable to the shipment of an international force in the Lebanon", French President Jacques remembered Thursday 3 of August Chirac.

Carrying out threats to extend its bombings, Israeli aviation carried out several tens of incursions, some of which specially violent, against the feudo of the Hizballah in the southern suburb of the capital. They had requested before to the population that fled by means of panfletos dropped from aircrafts. Five bridges, essential were bombed to the traffic between the Lebanon and Syria, two of which they are within a Christian region, on a highway bordering the coast and connecting Beirut to the north of the country. When cutting the transport of the humanitarian aid or the evacuations towards Syria, these bombings contributes to isolate a little plus the Lebanese capital. The scaling of the Israeli offensive that was in the Lebanon, immediately happened after the threats of Nasrallah to affect Tel-Aviv if Beirut were bombed. A high Israeli military person in charge immediately had talked back affirming that Israel would destroy all infrastructures of the Lebanon if Tel-Aviv were affected (1.5 million inhabitants). In parallel, violent combats were continued in the south, where  the Tsahal took incursions throughout the border very.

The Minister of Israeli Interior, Roni Bar, affirmed that the Tsahal at the moment controlled in the southern Lebanon a zone of a depth of 3 to 8 kilometers "we raked to move away it the threat of the Hizballah, in individual, its rockets", declared the Minister. Around one unfolds to  more than 10,000 Israeli soldiers to restore a zone of security of 6 to 8 km to the north of the Israeli border and to neutralize the sectors from which the Hizballah continues launching its rockets.

Friday 4 of August, the Israeli army had received the order to be prepared for a "fast taking of control" of the southern Lebanon until the Litani river that happens to a distance of 5 to 30 km of the Israeli border, according to its course. From the beginning of the conflict, the 44 Israeli military passed away in the combats, whereas 30 civilians died as effect of the 2200 attacks of the rockets of the Hizballah.

The Israeli army says to have destroyed offices of the Hizballah, the house of one of the people in charge of the movement shiíta and a building used by the Palestinian Hamas in the southern suburb of Beirut. Five people, one soldier of the Lebanese army died at least, and 12 others were wounded in the bombing of the bridges, announced the Red Cross. According to the Lebanese army, another soldier in incursions carried out died during the night on the poor district of Ouzaï, near the airport of Beirut.

In the south of the country, according to sources next to the services of Lebanese security, the milicianos shiítas exploded pumps and attacked with rocket launcher and automatic weapons the Israeli forces that occupy seven enclaves. The Hizballah also faced soldiers of the Tsahal who made new raids near the town of Markaba and a strategic hill not far from the coastal city of Nakoura. According to means To Arabia, it was killed to five Israeli soldiers near Markaba. A spokesman of the Israeli army confirmed that there were in his rows "some victims", without knows if it is dead or wounded. The spokesman added that the Israeli forces had killed a ten of combatants of the Hizballah in the south of the Lebanon. The military service shiíta so far did not comment out any as far as possible victims in its rows.

Israeli aviation made more than 150 incursions in all south of the country and the artillery made rain several hundreds of howitzers on border sectors, according to the services of security. "the estropicio of the explosions is incessant, the airplanes do not leave the sky... Is one of the worse days (of combats)", declared  a witness. The Hizballah affirms in an official notice to have destroyed an Israeli tank and vehiculo and to have faced units of infantry near Markaba after midnight, inflicting losses to the Israeli forces. In another official notice, the organization shiíta describes combats during the night in the town of Aïta To the Chaab and encounter near Taïbeh, where they would have destroyed to the tank and an armored vehicle of transport of troops.

The Israeli army at the moment carries out seven incursions very to long it of the border, and the combats are intense in all the sector, according to the provisional Force of the Nations United in the Lebanon (FINUL). Near 10,000 Israeli soldiers they are maintained in the southern Lebanon, to aim, according to the Ministry of Outer Subjects, "to sweep the Lebanese border" with the help of topadoras, "to destroy the bunkers of the Hizballah and to try that they cannot return to construct".

In Jerusalem, the Israeli leaders affirm that several days will take still to neutralize to  the Hizballah. Israeli Prime minister, Ehud Olmert, indicated that its country wants that "solid" an international force of 15,000 men is unfolded in the south of the Lebanon, before a stop to the fire. By its part, the Hizballah before rejected a truce of the retirement of the Israeli soldiers, while that Lebanese Prime minister, Fouad Siniora, pronounced to favor del unfolds "of a force of the UN that is not chosen by the chapter VII" that authorizes the use of the force, but that has the power of the defense. As far as the Ministers of Outer Subjects of the countries members of Arab Liga, they decided to celebrate an extraordinary meeting Monday 7 of next August in Beirut to support to the Lebanon.

In another sense, in Bagdad the Hizballah received the support of hundreds of thousands of those in favor of the head shiíta radical Iraqian Moqtada Sadr, who faced the insecurity that reigns in the zone to come from all the country.

The Humanitarian Crisis

The blockade of the Lebanon "considerably prevented the transport of the humanitarian aid", declared in a common official notice Action against the Hunger, Aid the International, Doctors of the World, Solidarities and First Urgency. Near a month after the principle of the conflict between Israel and the Hizballah, the five organizations emphasize that "the medical cares, the water provision and feeding cannot be guaranteed to the most vulnerable... blockade aerial, terrestrial and marine tax to the Lebanon considerably prevented the transport of the aid and the possibility for the civil populaces of putting itself to the refuge".

These organizations also denounce "a true destruction of the Lebanese civil infrastructures" that will have negative consequences, in terms of Public Health. The five organizations called to an immediate cease of the hostilities and to the respect of the humanitarian international right to make the access possible towards all the victims and the aid to the civil populaces.

As well, the Organism of the UN for the refugees (ACNUR) made a new order of bottoms to finance its operations in the Lebanon. On the 18.9 million requested dollars the month last for one first stage of three months, 4.65 million dollars of subventions were confirmed single. "the situation of hundreds of thousands of displaced by the conflict in course in the Lebanon, as much within the country as in Syria, becomes more and more difficult as the crisis is extended", it affirmed ACNUR in an official notice. The High Committee of aid of the Lebanese Government considers that they moved to approximately 800,000 people in the Lebanon, 130,000 of who are lodged in places public, mainly in the schools, according to the agency of the UN.

ACNUR provides material of aid like bedspreads, mattresses, kitchens, products of hygiene and rations you would feed additional, to hundreds of thousand of people moved and in conditions of overpopulation. "our equipment informs that they also found people in buildings public or even in buildings in construction without no equipment", honored the High Commissioner of the Refugees. Some Syria families welcome in the refugees, although  they also undergo the overpopulation, "Our equipment visited isolated regions numerous families, who welcome an average term of 20 in 30 people".

 In the own Lebanon, ACNUR distributed more than 6200 bedspreads and stores, 54 equipment of kitchen and 3380 mattresses to approximately 5000 people but worry "about the lack of fuel that is going to begin to limit (his) humanitarian work of aid in mountains, where (it uses) the local transports to transport the aids... without fuel, this operation could be stopped", according to honored ACNUR people, that they also said that in Syria, "our equipment of monitoring on four crossing sites of the border inform into that approximately 5,000 people to the day cross the border by the passages to the north", which represents the date a total of 140,000 Lebaneses, unlike the first flow that was much greater.

The refugees put in a home themselves in schools, communitarian colonies of vacations, centers, mosques and hotels, but although the local generosity is very important, is a risk that this is colapsada.

More than 54,000 people they have been evacuated of Lebanon towards Cyprus from the outbreak of the Israeli offensive to the country of the Cedar against the Hizballah, informed the authorities chipriotas. Omiros Mavromatis, a person in charge of the Ministry of Outer Subjects, needed that 54,285 foreign nationals had fled towards the island, although the number of evacuees  has diminished of significant way during the last days. Approximately 2000 foreigners arrived at Cyprus during last the 24 hours, but the arrival of a French boat with 1500 people is expected on board. The French Ministry of Outer Subjects needed that the French authorities had repatriated to more of a 11,640 people of the Lebanon, of which 9,000 were national French and more than 2,500 of other nationalities, in its majority European, American and Canadian.

Cyprus renewed its call to a greater attendance of the European Union, fearing that a prolonged crisis implies the affluence of a wave of Lebanese refugees. "It is necessary that other partners, all the partners open their borders to the people in visa search" towards the countries of the European Union, needed Alexandros Zenon, a person in charge of the Ministry of Outer Subjects.

The bombings conducted by Israel on bridges of freeway of the north of the Lebanon and a bastion of the Hizballah in the south of Beirut, blocked convoys of the UN but also the ONGs obtained in spite of which the humanitarian aid arrived at the Lebanon. When destroying the Israeli airplanes four bridges on the coastal freeway that connected Beirut with Syria, I become paralyzed to a convoy of eight trucks that transported 150 tons of meals and material destined approximately 900,000 people.

The UN presents/displays east axis of highways like the umbilical cord of its humanitarian operation in the Lebanon, where the hard conflict for more than three weeks. The bridge of Maamelteïn, to the north of the capital, is cut in two by an enormous crater that partially absorbed the housing of a light truck. Astrid Van Genderen Stort, of the High Commissioner of the UN for the Refugees said that "It is really a hard blow because we used this freeway to transport to the personnel and the food in the country". One has commited ACNUR to prorogue visits anticipated to Beirut to evaluate the necessities of the population and to provide an aid to 400,000 people who lived in families guests, in schools or parkings. It is considered that 800,000 to a million people had to flee from their home, and that fifth of among them took refuge in Syria. Food the World-wide Program of the United Nations (PMA) cancelled convoys to the city of Shot, in the south of the country, and to Rachidieh, after the incursions that destroyed a district of the southern suburb of Beirut, preventing to its conductors to return towards the exit.

A third convoy in charge of food, water and medical supplies, destined to the city of Djezzine, was as it were anticipated but, according to employees of the humanitarian sector, the access limited the refugees because of the destruction of infrastructures makes worse the crisis in situ. The Organization the International of the Migrations says to have seen forced to prorogue the evacuation, predicted for this weekend, of 2,000 people, with the aid of 720 Philippine and srilanqueses workers.

The Rainbow Warrior, ship-standard of Greenpeace, arrived at the port of Beirut with 40 tons of aid provided by Doctors without Borders. The international Committee of the Red Cross received 100 tons of meals, of carpet of ground and equipment of kitchen, among other things for at least three sectors affected by the bombings in the valley of the Bekaa, the east of the country, and in the region of Shot.

Ten tons of stores and material destined to make refuges, provided by China, were transported by airplane from Jordan, as well as an equivalent weight of cakes and medical equipment of the World-wide Food Program. "Thanks to God, the fact that our umbilical cord to the north was cut this still more important flight ago", declared Robin Lodge, spokesman of the PMA, although "this continues being a drop of water in the ocean".

The Bottom of the Nations United for the childhood (UNICEF) sent a campaign of vaccination of thousands of Lebanese children to prevent the appearance of poliomielitis epidemics and measles. The UN, that requested an aid of urgency of 150 million dollars, affirms not to have received at the moment more than 25 million dollars of promises of subventions. According to its agencies, the fuel shortage that threatens the Lebanon could affect the electrical power stations, the hospitals and the pumping stations in the next days, threatening making worse already mediocre sanitary conditions for hundreds of thousands of people and the risk of which they increase the epidemics.  On the other hand Israel, that imposes a blockade marine to the Lebanon, authorized the passage of two oil tankers but the proprietors of these ships judge insufficient the guarantees provided by the Hebrew State.

Conclusion

Israel tries, without success, to eliminate the Hizballah, the Lebanese formation shiíta, which I send against the Hebrew State more than 2,000 rockets from the beginning of this conflict caused by the capture of two Israeli soldiers, 12 of July the last, in the border between both countries. The scaling of the Israeli offensive the last Friday, happened immediately after the threats of the head of the Hizballah, Hassan Nasrallah, to affect to Tel Aviv if the Lebanese capital were bombed. In the east of the Lebanon, Israeli airplanes shot four missiles on a building next to the customs of Qaa, a Christian town to 50 km to the northeast of Baalbeck. One killed twenty-six Syrians and one hurt other 30  civilians. It is the first time that a great number of Syrians is killed by the Israeli bombings on the Lebanon from the 12 of July. This put-border, one of the four between the Lebanon and Syria, are on the highway that leads from Bekaa to the Syria city of Homs. Israeli aviation also already bombed the Lebanese put-border of Masnaa.

The still present Lebaneses in the south of the country are threatened by epidemics due to the lack of potable water, electricity and fuel, if Israel continues its attacks in this sector, prevented the UN. In parallel, the convoys of provision of the international organizations coming from Syria cannot arrive more at the Lebanon after the destruction from the bridges to the north of Beirut. "we fear cases of disentería, rage, and other epidemics", declared Paul Sherlock, an advisor of the Bottom of the Nations United for Infancia (UNICEF). "He is disentería what it worries to us more", added  Sherlock.

The Israeli bombings cut the highways, destroyed infrastructures, and forced to the flight tens of thousands of inhabitants of the southern Lebanon. But there are farmers who remained blocked in the zone, or by fear to move or because they are too poor to do it. The situation becomes desperate. If the shortage continues it is going to see outbreaks of epidemics. The most extreme conditions are in the south, mainly in the border towns where there is still people in the refuges for more than two weeks. There is no water, neither electricity, nor gasoline, and are without evacuation of the remainders. "the fundamental problem today is the access to the population", is outstanding to Marie Heuzé, spokesman of the UN in Geneva.

Before the massacres perpetrated by Israel in the Lebanon, the reaction of the UN was not to the height of the aspirations when killer to four observers of the FINUL. It is necessary to make two distinctions. First it is the political UN, that is to say, the States members that constitute the Security Council of the United Nations and the Secretaryship of the United Nations. If the States members have a position in the Security Council that obeys to outer political interests it would be totally normal. But the Secretaryship of the United Nations is On guard to condemn by means of its Secretary General the attack against the observers of the United Nations.

Two levels of negotiations consider. The immediate level talks about the Lebanon, Palestine, Hizballah and Israel. Secondly, one is to decide the hostilities for the transport of the aids with the purpose of saving lives. The political solution will have to take control of all the States of the region. The debates in course on the shipment of an international force in the southern Lebanon essentially take the point of knowing what organization (NATO, the European Union or the UN) or what countries are going to provide the troops. It is a certainly important point, but the true question talks about the change of policy in which Israel must commit in exchange for the restoration of this force and the risks of such mission.

No international force is going to limit itself to protect to Israel of the missiles of the Hizballah if the Israeli strategy does not change, since it at least partially must the recent military scaling in the region to this strategy. If an international force lets to the Government of Ehud Olmert follow in its present route, the countries that will provide troops will give the impression to support the Israeli policy and its mission will fail.

To criticize the Israeli strategy again does not return to guarantee that there are not attacks of Hamas or the Hizballah or to deny to Israel the right to defend itself. It is necessary to emphasize what would have to be evident: the attempts of Israel to find an unilateral solution to its problems of security - that is use, distant or separation - they failed. The unilateral use without commitment for the construction of a viable Palestinian State had as only result the Intifada and the attacks force suicide on.

The unilateral retirement of Gaza without the previous establishment of a local authority to maintain the order ended at a new intervention. And the "barrier of security" that implied an unilateral separation can protect of attacks forces suicide on, but not of the modern missiles like the employees by the Hizballah. Until now, the only conclusion that Israel seems to have removed from the strategy in which is doubtful that it must extend and intensify the unilateral resource to the force: to invade Gaza again, to destroy the Lebanon, to threaten Syria, and indirectly to Iran that, according to the Israeli Government, a paper in the outbreak of the present crisis would have.

But it is not necessary to be an international analyst to predict that still more violence will not contribute more security to Israel. Its strategy, that sometimes remembers to the one of the terrorists, who consist of bombing the civilians to exert pressure on their leaders do to the game of the extremists and reinforce their popular base. That will not conceal the fact that Israel exhausted all the unilateral options. Israel still refuses to admit that. Their leaders hope that an imposing international force to the south of the Lebanon is going to protect the north of Israel, leaving them the free hands to act unilaterally in Gaza and Cisjordania, which would imply to the international community in their unilateralismo without exit.

Therefore, the constitution of an international force would be irresponsible. The countries would give the impression to take unequivocal the party from Israel, being thus lost all credibility to the eyes of their adversaries. They would also run the risk of implying in new Israeli operations against the Hizballah and those that maintain them. But mainly, that would be equivalent to resign to which is perhaps the last occasion to establish a consensual peace. For that reason, the previous condition to the creation of an international force for the southern Lebanon must please be the renovation by the Israel of its commitment in the "opening and trip ticket" of negotiations with the Palestinians for the constitution of a true Palestinian State.

It is with this objective in the head that Israel must negotiate with the democratically chosen Palestinian representatives. Such negotiations will be surely difficult and he is not safe that there is success. But that cannot already be an argument against the diplomacy, now that the Israeli unilateralismo appears like a strategy without exit. Only a State of Israel, that it really wants to guarantee his security by an agreement instead of imposing it to his neighbors, can contribute to the efforts of the international community to even contribute the stability to the Lebanon and  further on. It is certain that some countries, in individual, the United States, run the risk of being against to make such revocation of the Israeli policy like a condition to the creation of an international force.

He is not then safe that a consensus can be reached in NATO, the UE or the UN. As much more than if it were gotten to obtain it, Israel could simply refuse to back down. The creation of an international force for the single southern Lebanon within the framework has sense of the search of La Paz in all the region, not like appendix of the present strategy of Israel.

* Dr Ramiro Anzit Guerrero: Specialist in Counter terrorism and International Security.