Britain Hands Lebanon Extra $13 Mln in Humanitarian Support

A man runs for cover as smoke rises in the background following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A man runs for cover as smoke rises in the background following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
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Britain Hands Lebanon Extra $13 Mln in Humanitarian Support

A man runs for cover as smoke rises in the background following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A man runs for cover as smoke rises in the background following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Britain said it would provide an additional 10 million pounds ($13 million) of humanitarian support to Lebanon to help the country deal with the mass displacement of people and the growing number of civilian casualties.

More than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced by Israeli attacks, and nearly 2,000 people have been killed since the start of the Israeli raids on Lebanon over the last year, most of them in the past two weeks, Lebanese authorities said.

The southern suburb of Dahiye, a stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah, came under renewed strikes near midnight on Thursday after Israel ordered people to leave their homes in some areas, residents and security sources said.

The air raids targeted Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, rumored successor to its assassinated leader Hassan Nasrallah, in an underground bunker, Axios reporter Barak Ravid said on X, citing three Israeli officials.

Safieddine's fate was not clear, he said.



Lebanon Receives First UN Aid Plane since Israel's War

Staff unload a medical aid shipment at the Beirut International Airport - AFP
Staff unload a medical aid shipment at the Beirut International Airport - AFP
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Lebanon Receives First UN Aid Plane since Israel's War

Staff unload a medical aid shipment at the Beirut International Airport - AFP
Staff unload a medical aid shipment at the Beirut International Airport - AFP

A delivery of medical supplies from the United Nations reached Lebanon on Friday, a first since last week's Israeli war on Lebanon, said a UN agency and a Lebanese minister.

"An airlift... landed in Beirut earlier this morning with 30 metric tonnes of trauma and surgical supplies, enough to treat tens of thousands people," the World Health Organization's regional director Hanan Balkhy said on social media platform X.

"More flights are arriving later today and tomorrow, carrying trauma supplies, cholera supplies and mental health supplies," she added, AFP reported.

Rapidly escalating Israeli strikes since September 23 on Lebanon have killed more than 1,100 people in and wounded hundreds more, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

Lebanese authorities said the violence has also displaced more than one million people from their homes in the tiny Mediterranean country, already mired in economic and political crises.

Health Minister Firass Abiad was at the Beirut airport on Friday to receive the aid organized by the World Health Organization and UN refugee agency UNHCR and funded by the United Arab Emirates.

"We are receiving the first shipment out of many," he said.

The shipment included "many trauma kits that will be crucial to support the hospitals as they receive the casualties from the Israeli attacks on Lebanon," he added.