UN humanitarian officials have warned that urgent action is needed to prevent the escalating conflict in Lebanon from spiralling into a similar scene of devastation that has resulted from Israel’s war on Gaza.
“We need to do everything we can to stop that from happening,” Matthew Hollingworth, Lebanon country director for the UN’s World Food Programme, told reporters.
Hollingworth spent the first half of the year coordinating WFP’s operations in Gaza before taking the helm of its Lebanon office, and was deeply concerned by the similarities.
He said:It is in my mind from the time I wake until the time I sleep, that we could go into the same sort of spiral of doom... We shouldn’t allow that to happen.
He voiced concern about Lebanon’s food supply, saying thousands of hectares of farmland across the country’s south has burned or been abandoned, adding that harvests will not occur and produce is rotting in fields.
Hollingworth told reporters:Agriculture-wise, food production-wise, (there is) extraordinary concern for Lebanon’s ability to continue to feed itself.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said as far back as April that Israeli airstrikes had turned southern Lebanon into a “devastated agricultural area” (Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire since last October – it is over the last few weeks that Israeli attacks on Lebanon have intensified).
“Eight hundred hectares have been completely damaged, 340,000 heads of livestock have died, and about 75% of farmers have lost their final source of income,” Mikati said at the time. “This problem will extend to the coming years,” he added.
Click here for an interview with Hollingworth on UN's podcast series, Awake at Night
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