UN aid workers fear same ‘spiral of doom’ in Lebanon as Gaza

By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) -U.N. officials voiced concern on Tuesday that the same methods of warfare used by Israel that caused high civilian casualties and widespread destruction in Gaza are now being repeated in Lebanon, calling for action to avoid the same “spiral of doom”.

Israeli forces have begun ground operations in the southwest of Lebanon, escalating a year-long conflict with the Iran-backed group Hezbollah that has killed over 1,000 people in the past two weeks and prompted the mass flight of over a million people.

In the Gaza Strip, nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed and most of the 2.3 million population displaced in the war triggered by the Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border attack by Hamas in which gunmen killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages.

“It is in my mind, from the time I awake until the time I sleep, that we could go into the same sort of spiral of doom, and we need to do everything we can to stop that from happening in this particular crisis,” World Food Programme Country Director in Lebanon Matthew Hollingworth said in response to a question about parallels between the two conflicts.

Israel’s military has said Hamas fighters hide among civilians in Gaza and that it will strike them wherever they emerge, while also trying to avoid harming civilians.

Its campaign against the more heavily-armed Hezbollah aims to secure the return home of Israelis evacuated from areas near the border as a result of nearly a year of Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel in support of Hamas.

“We need the world to be more impactful and able to make the arguments that this cannot go on,” Hollingworth told a Geneva briefing by video link from Beirut.

Fears of a repeat of Gaza’s upheaval are also shared by the Lebanese population and this explains why so many have fled so quickly, Hollingworth said after visiting displacement camps.

A World Health Organization official said at the same briefing that nine hospitals in Lebanon had been shut or partially shut – a pattern that has also occurred in Gaza.

Ian Clarke, WHO’s Deputy Incident Manager for Lebanon, warned of disease outbreaks in Lebanon due to crowded conditions in displacement shelters and hospital closures as medics have fled Israel’s assault.

The U.N. human rights office has previously said that Israeli forces may have repeatedly violated the laws of war in Gaza. Its spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said on Tuesday that the “same means and methods of warfare” are being used in Lebanon.

Israel denies violating the laws of war, saying its conflict is with Palestinian militants not Palestinians in general.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; editing by Miranda Murray, Mark Potter and Mark Heinrich)