Beirut blast aid faces an obstacle course in Lebanon

Volunteers clean rubble from the streets following the huge explosion in Beirut's port area, in the Lebanese capital, on August 4, 2020. (Reuters/File Photo)
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Updated 14 September 2020
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Beirut blast aid faces an obstacle course in Lebanon

  • Many Lebanese have little faith that aid delivered through official channels will reach the right recipients
  • Raising funds is easier than distributing them due to lack of trust in the country’s banking system

DUBAI: No sooner had the explosion of Aug. 4 devastated Beirut than the Lebanese diaspora came to their home country’s rescue.

The extent of the damage to homes and infrastructure was still not clear, but no one was under any illusion about the blast’s severity given that the shockwaves were felt more than 200 km away in Cyprus.

By the morning of Aug. 5, Impact Lebanon, a non-profit based in London, had collected close to £1.5 million ($2 million).

Since then the organization, which was founded by a group of UK-based Lebanese when anti-government protests erupted in Lebanon in October last year, has built up an impressive $8.23 million.

But as fundraising activities by diaspora communities continue worldwide, a concern that looms large over them is how Lebanese civil-society groups will be able to access the money.

One of the biggest challenges the Lebanese people face, as they pick up the pieces after last month’s explosion in Beirut, is the country’s troubled financial system. 

A complex set of regulations that govern transactions involving dollar bank accounts in Lebanese banks meant that Impact Lebanon was able to begin transferring the funds it had raised from Aug. 25 — three weeks after the blast.


The transfers were made in small instalments in order to reduce the risk of loss while navigating a corrupt banking system.

Under a scheme known as “fresh money,” individuals outside the country can transfer dollars into a “fresh money” account in Lebanese banks.

But access to such an account is granted only to those who can prove they are the recipients of dollar transfers from abroad. 

How long the scheme will last is open to question, though, which partly explains why Impact Lebanon volunteers decided against a lump-sum transfer of the funds it had collected.




Fundraising activities by diaspora communities continue worldwide, but concerns looms large over about how Lebanese civil-society groups will be able to access the money. (Supplied: Mariana Wehbe)

“Money will be sent in different instalments to the 15-20 different NGOs the fund is supporting inside the country,” said Maya Hodroj, co-founder and director of Impact Lebanon.

Since it is still to be registered as a charity in the UK, Impact Lebanon used crowdfunding platform JustGiving for fundraising and partnered with Lebanese International Financial Executive, a non-profit organization with branches in Lebanon, the UK, the US and Switzerland, to distribute the money among a mix of Lebanon-focused NGOs.

Currently, despite the web of restrictive banking regulations, aid is getting channeled through civil-society and international aid organizations, including many in-kind donations of food, personal protective equipment, sanitary items and other goods, particularly from Gulf Cooperation Council member states such as the UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Disruptions, however, continue to affect humanitarian work, such as the huge fire that broke out on Sept. 10 at a warehouse in Beirut port where the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) stores food parcels.

Opinion

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Recently, the Trump administration said it would not be sending aid to the Lebanese government for fear it might end up in the hands of the Shiite Lebanese party Hezbollah, which is a US-designated terror group. Aid from the US will thus have to be sent through alternative channels.

Immediately after the blast of Aug. 4, residents of Beirut had no choice but to take care of themselves. The sense of helplessness prompted the rapid formation of a number of organizations by young Lebanese.

Their goal, in the immediate term, was to help the wounded, homeless and traumatized and, in the long term, to rebuild Beirut. 

“In the absence of government support, the Lebanese people had to fend for themselves, fixing the country and the people mentally and physically,” said Nancy Gabriel, co-founder along with Mariana Wehbe of Beb w Shebbek, an organization dedicated to repairing or replacing blast-damaged doors and windows of 80,000 homes.




Beb w Shebbek is an organization dedicated to repairing or replacing blast-damaged doors and windows of 80,000 homes. (Supplied: Mariana Wehbe)

“Beb w Shebbek is exactly like other Lebanese organizations born after the explosion. We had to create this initiative to help others because the government is totally absent,” Gabriel added.

“Three weeks after the explosion, most people are still living with open windows and doors. Their homes are totally destroyed. They have nowhere else to go.”

After the end of the civil war in 1990, foreign aid emerged as a key pillar of Lebanon’s financial and economic stability.

Since the blast, donor countries have pledged close to $300 million in aid. Additionally, the UN is trying to raise more than $500 million for Lebanon.

But some of the slogans heard on the streets of Beirut since Aug. 4 oppose more international assistance to the country.

Many Lebanese not only have little faith in aid reaching the right recipients, they are convinced that the country’s political elites are the ultimate beneficiary of the economic model.

“Many Lebanese government officials and advisors are paid with the millions allocated by programs such as those managed by the UNDP (UN Development Programme),” said Gino Raidy, a Lebanese activist and blogger.


“There’s a lack of trust right now in some international aid organizations, including the UN. It’s not about just giving money, but finding long-term solutions that will put an end to the corruption, instead of inadvertently encouraging it like we’ve seen for decades.”

Activist Mouin Jaber told Arab News from Beirut: “We’re actually playing the role of the Lebanese government, which stayed silent and remained inactive during the first two weeks of the disaster.”

He drew attention to the eyebrows raised by the sight of Lebanese military officers handing out aid to citizens three weeks after the disaster.

“Right now, the Lebanese Army is distributing food boxes to people, with camera crews documenting the propaganda,” said Jaber.


“They’ve been extremely incompetent and inefficient in providing aid to their citizens. It’s a joke.”

Jaber and his friends got in touch with four youth organizations and NGOs formed during the October protests to deliver relief kits to people affected by the explosion.

These include Minteshreen, a youth-led group that has been distributing food boxes during the coronavirus pandemic; Baytna Baytak, an NGO providing alternative housing to patients suffering from COVID-19 who could not go back to their homes, and is now arranging accommodation for those who lost their homes in the blast; Muwaten Lebnene; and Embrace Lebanon, a mental-health clinic.

“We assembled a team of engineers to assess damage to homes, and provided people with temporary solutions until long-term plans for rebuilding can be finalized,” said Jaber. “This is all voluntary work. No one is being paid.”

Some volunteers have set up an informal base camp for better coordination of aid and relief operations being managed separately by dozens of local NGOs.

“Instead of sending relief to these big organizations, it would be better to send money to reconstruction companies that have bank accounts abroad so that they have full access to the money,” said Jaber.

“This would be better than sending to third-party intermediaries because you never know where the money will go when it arrives in Lebanon.”




Beb w Shebbek is an organization dedicated to repairing or replacing blast-damaged doors and windows of 80,000 homes. (Supplied: Mariana Wehbe)

That said, fears expressed by some Lebanese on social media about NGOs encountering difficulty in getting aid into the country and relief supplies being mishandled by the government may have been overblown.

Nabih Jabr, under-secretary-general at the Lebanese Red Cross, said his teams received relief items and distributed them to those in need. “The problem was that we received too many in-kind donations too soon,” he told Arab News from Beirut.

“Some of them didn’t cater to the immediate needs of the affected population, and we rapidly ran out of space in nearby warehouses, so we took some of these items for processing in our warehouses all over the country,” he said.

“It always happens with in-kind donations that some end up sold in stores. People receive in-kind aid but need the cash, so some sell it to be able to get what they really need, and this is exactly why in-kind aid isn’t always the best aid.”

Jabr said in-kind donations can harm the local economy. “Small local businesses are already in trouble, and soon they’ll be in even more trouble if people don’t start buying again,” he added.

Jabr said the next step for the Lebanese Red Cross is handing out direct cash assistance. “This will start very soon,” he added. “This is the best and most efficient way to help people as long as there’s still a functioning local economy.”

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Twitter: @rebeccaaproctor


France’s foreign minister looks to prevent Israel-Hezbollah conflict escalation in Lebanon visit

French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Stephane Sejourne. (REUTERS file photo)
Updated 28 April 2024
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France’s foreign minister looks to prevent Israel-Hezbollah conflict escalation in Lebanon visit

  • Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
  • Israel has remained cautious on the French initiative, although Israeli and French officials say Israel supports efforts to defuse the cross-border tensions

BEIRUT: France’s foreign minister will push proposals to prevent further escalation and a potential war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah during a visit to Lebanon on Sunday as Paris seeks to refine a roadmap that both sides could accept to ease tensions.
France has historical ties with Lebanon and earlier this year Stephane Sejourne delivered an initiative that proposed Hezbollah’s elite unit pull back 10 km (6 miles) from the Israeli border, while Israel would halt strikes in southern Lebanon.
The two have exchanged tit for tat strikes in recent months, but the exchanges have increased since Iran launched a barrage of missiles on Israel in response to a suspected Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in the Syrian capital Damascus that killed members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps’ overseas Quds Force.
France’s proposal, which has been discussed with partners, notably the United States, has not moved forward, but Paris wants to keep momentum in talks and underscore to Lebanese officials that Israeli threats of a military operation in southern Lebanon should be taken seriously.
Hezbollah has maintained it will not enter any concrete discussion until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, where the war between Israel and Islamist militant group Hamas has entered its sixth month.
Israel has also said it wants to ensure calm is restored on its northern border so that thousands of displaced Israelis can return to the area without fear of rocket attacks from across the border.
“The objective is to prevent a regional conflagration and avoid that the situation deteriorates even more on the border between Israel and Lebanon,” foreign ministry deputy spokesperson Christophe Lemoine said at a news conference.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Nikati and Lebanese army chief Joseph Aoun met French President Emmanuel Macron earlier this month, where they discussed the French proposal.
In a letter addressed to the French embassy in Beirut in March, Lebanon’s foreign ministry said Beirut believed the French initiative would be a significant step toward peace and security in Lebanon and the broader region.
Local Lebanese media had reported the government had provided feedback to the French on the proposal.
French officials say the responses so far have been general and lack consensus among the Lebanese. While they deem it too early for any form of accord, they believe it is vital to engage now so that when the moment comes both sides are ready.
Paris will also underline the urgency of breaking the political deadlock in the country. Lebanon has neither a head of state nor a fully empowered cabinet since Michel Aoun’s term as president ended in October 2022.
Israel has remained cautious on the French initiative, although Israeli and French officials say Israel supports efforts to defuse the cross-border tensions.
“The flames will flicker and tensions will continue,” said a Lebanese diplomat. “We are in a situation of strategic ambiguity on both sides.”
France has 700 troops based in southern Lebanon as part of the 10,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping force.
Officials say the UN troops are unable to carry out their mandate and part of France’s proposals are aimed at beefing up the mission by strengthening the Lebanese army.
After Lebanon, Sejourne will head to Saudi Arabia before traveling to Israel.
Arab and Western foreign ministers, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, will hold informal talks on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum event in Riyadh to discuss the Gaza war with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

 


32 more killed in Gaza as Hamas studies new Israeli truce proposal

Updated 28 April 2024
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32 more killed in Gaza as Hamas studies new Israeli truce proposal

  • Mediators working on compromise that will answer most of main demands
  • Minister says Israel a deal could lead to suspension of planned Rafah offensive 

JEDDAH/GAZA STRIP: Palestinians in Rafah said on Saturday they were living in “constant terror” as Israel vows to push ahead with its planned assault on the south Gaza city flooded with displaced civilians.

The Israeli military has massed dozens of tanks and armored vehicles in southern Israel close to Rafah and hit locations in the city in near-daily airstrikes.

“We live in constant terror and fear of repeated displacement and invasion,” said Nidaa Safi, 30, who fled Israeli strikes in the north and came to Rafah with her husband and children.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 34,388 people have been killed in the besieged territory during more than six months of war between Israel and Hamas militants.

The tally includes at least 32 deaths in the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 77,437 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war broke out when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

Mourners stand near corpses of an adult and a child killed in overnight Israeli bombardment, in the front of the morgue of a hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on April 27, 2024. (AFP)

Early Saturday, an airstrike hit a house in Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighborhood, killing a man, his wife and their sons, ages 12, 10 and 8, according to records of the Abu Yousef Al-Najjar hospital’s morgue. A neighbor’s 4-month-old girl was also killed.

Ahmed Omar rushed with other neighbors after the 1:30 a.m. strike to look for survivors, but said they only found bodies and body parts. “It’s a tragedy,” he said.

An Israeli airstrike later Saturday on a building in Rafah killed seven people, including six members of the Ashour family, according to the morgue.

Five people were killed in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza overnight when an Israeli strike hit a house, according to officials at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Elsewhere, Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinian men at a checkpoint in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the military said. It said the men had opened fire at troops stationed at Salem checkpoint near the city of Jenin.

Violence in the West Bank has flared since the war. The Ramallah-based Health Ministry says 491 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire.

Israel's counterproposal

Hamas said it was studying Israel’s latest counterproposal for a ceasefire, a day after reports said a delegation from mediator Egypt was in Israel trying to jump-start stalled negotiations.

Israel’s foreign minister said that the Rafah incursion could be suspended should there be a deal to secure the release of Israeli hostages.

Palestinian children walk amid the debris of a house destroyed by overnight Israeli bombardment in Rafah on April 27, 2024. (AFP)

“The release of the hostages is the top priority for us,” said Israel Katz. “If there will be a deal, we will suspend the operation.” 

The Egyptian delegation discussed a “new vision” for a prolonged ceasefire in Gaza, according to an Egyptian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the developments.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Israel’s proposal was directly related to the visit.

Khalil Al-Hayya, deputy head of Hamas’s political arm in Gaza, said it had “received the official Zionist occupation response to the movement’s position, which was delivered to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators on April 13.”

Negotiations earlier this month centered on a six-week ceasefire proposal and the release of 40 civilian and sick hostages in exchange for freeing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

A separate Hamas statement said leaders from the three main militant groups active in Gaza discussed attempts to end the war. It didn’t mention the Israeli proposal.

The armed wing of Hamas also released video footage of two men held hostage in Gaza, identified by Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum as Keith Siegel and Omri Miran.

Mediators are working on a compromise that will answer most of both parties’ main demands, which could pave the way to continued negotiations with the goal of a deal to end the war, the official said.

Israeli police stand by as protestors take part in a demonstration by Israeli and American Rabbis near Erez crossing between Israel and the Gaza strip on the Israeli side on April 26, 2024. (REUTERS)

Hamas has said it won’t back down from demands for a permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal of Israeli troops. 

Israel has rejected both and said it will continue military operations until Hamas is defeated and that it will retain a security presence in Gaza.

There is growing international pressure for Hamas and Israel to reach a ceasefire deal and avert an Israeli attack on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have sought refuge.

Israel has insisted for months it plans a ground offensive into Rafah, on the border with Egypt, where it says many remaining Hamas militants remain, despite calls for restraint including from Israel’s staunchest ally, the United States.

Egypt has cautioned an offensive into Rafah could have “catastrophic consequences” on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where famine is feared, and on regional peace and security.

Tolerating Israeli abuses

Washington has been critical of Israeli policies in the West Bank. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is expected in Israel on Tuesday, recently determined an army unit committed rights abuses there before the war in Gaza.

But Blinken said in an undated letter to US House Speaker Mike Johnson, obtained by The Associated Press on Friday, that he’s postponing a decision on blocking aid to the unit to give Israel more time to right the wrongdoing. Blinken stressed that overall US military support for Israel’s defense wouldn’t be affected.

The US has also been building a pier to deliver aid to Gaza through a new port. Israel’s military confirmed Saturday that it would be operational by early May.

The BBC reported the UK government was considering deploying troops to drive the trucks to carry the aid to shore, citing unidentified government sources. British officials declined to comment.

Another aid effort, a three-ship flotilla coming from Turkiye, was prevented from sailing, organizers said.

Student protests over the war and its effect on Palestinians are growing on college campuses in the US, while demonstrations continue in many countries.

Hamas sparked the war by attacking southern Israel on Oct. 7, with militants killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostage. Israel says the militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.


Sudan demands emergency UN meeting on UAE ‘aggression’

Updated 28 April 2024
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Sudan demands emergency UN meeting on UAE ‘aggression’

  • For months the regular army has accused the United Arab Emirates of supporting the RSF, a charge the UAE denies

PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Sudan has requested an emergency UN Security Council meeting on what it calls UAE “aggression” for allegedly supporting paramilitaries battling the army, a diplomatic source said Saturday.
The fighting broke out in April last year between the regular army, headed by Sudan’s de facto leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
For months the regular army has accused the United Arab Emirates of supporting the RSF, a charge the UAE denies.
“Yesterday, our permanent representative to the United Nations submitted a request for an urgent session of the Security Council to discuss the UAE’s aggression against the Sudanese people, and the provision of weapons and equipment to the terrorist militia,” the source told AFP.
The country’s official SUNA news agency confirmed that Sudan’s UN representative, Al-Harith Idriss, had submitted the request.
SUNA cited Idriss as saying this was “in response to the UAE representative’s memorandum to the Council,” and that “the UAE’s support for the criminal Rapid Support militia that waged war on the state makes the UAE an accomplice in all its crimes.”
In a letter to the Security Council last week, the UAE foreign ministry rejected Sudan’s accusations that it backs the RSF.
The letter said the allegations were “spurious (and) unfounded, and lack any credible evidence to support them.”
Separately on Saturday, the UN Security Council expressed “deep concern” over escalating fighting in Sudan’s North Darfur region and warned against the possibility of an imminent offensive by the RSF and allied militias on El Fasher.
The city is the last Darfur state capital not under RSF control and hosts a large number of refugees.
United Nations officials put out similar warnings Friday, with the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk expressing his “grave concern.”
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ spokesperson’s office said an attack on El Fasher “would have devastating consequences for the civilian population... in an area already on the brink of famine.”
The Sudan war has killed tens of thousands of people and forced more than 8.5 million people to flee their homes in what the United Nations has called the “largest displacement crisis in the world.”
In December, Khartoum demanded that 15 Emirati diplomats leave the country after an army commander accused Abu Dhabi of supporting the RSF, and protests in Port Sudan demanded the expulsion of the UAE ambassador.
The Wall Street Journal, citing Ugandan officials, reported last August that weapons had been found in a UAE cargo plane transporting humanitarian aid to Sudanese refugees in Chad, prompting a denial from Abu Dhabi.


Hezbollah says fires drones and guided missiles at Israel

Updated 28 April 2024
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Hezbollah says fires drones and guided missiles at Israel

  • The border between Lebanon and Israel has seen near-daily exchanges of fire since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began nearly seven months ago

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement said Saturday it had targeted northern Israel with drones and guided missiles after cross-border Israeli strikes killed three people, including two of its members.
A statement from the group said it “launched a complex attack using explosive drones and guided missiles on the headquarters of the Al Manara military command and a gathering of forces from the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade.”
The Israeli army said its Iron Dome air-defense system “successfully intercepted a suspicious aerial target that crossed from Lebanon into the area of Manara in northern Israel.”
The army also “struck the sources of fire” of several anti-tank missiles launched from Lebanon into the Manara border area, it added.
Lebanon’s National News Agency later reported that an Israeli air strike on a house in Srebbine village had wounded 11 people, one seriously.
Earlier Saturday, Israeli fighter jets “struck a Hezbollah military structure in the area of Qouzah in southern Lebanon,” the army said in a statement.
The border between Lebanon and Israel has seen near-daily exchanges of fire since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began nearly seven months ago.
In two separate statements earlier Saturday, Hezbollah mourned the deaths of two fighters from the villages of Kafr Kila and Khiam.
It said they had been “martyred on the road to Jerusalem,” the phrase it uses to refer to members killed by Israeli fire.
Hezbollah has intensified its targeting of military sites in Israel since tensions soared between Israel and Iran over the bombing of Tehran’s Damascus consulate on April 1, widely blamed on Israel.
 

 


Iran to release crew members of seized Portugal-flagged ship

Updated 27 April 2024
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Iran to release crew members of seized Portugal-flagged ship

  • The ship’s seizure took place hours before Iran carried out its first-ever direct attack on Israel, launching hundreds of drones and missiles

TEHRAN: Iran said on Saturday it would release the crew members of a Portuguese-flagged ship that its forces seized this month in the Gulf.
The Revolutionary Guard Corps took over the MSC Aries with 25 crew members on board near the Strait of Hormuz on April 13.
Tehran later said the ship belonged to its Israel and was being investigated for alleged violations of international maritime law.
“The humanitarian issue of the release of the ship’s crew is of great concern to us,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a phone call with his Portuguese counterpart Paulo Rangel.

BACKGROUND

The ship’s seizure took place hours before Iran carried out its first-ever direct attack on Israel, launching hundreds of drones and missiles.

“We have given consular access to their ambassadors in Tehran and announced to the envoys that the crew members will be released and extradited,” he was quoted as saying in a statement from his ministry, without elaborating.
Following the ship’s seizure, Portugal summoned Iran’s ambassador to demand its immediate release.
On April 18, India said one of the 17 Indian crew members had returned home and that the others were granted consular access.
“They are in good health and not facing any problems on the ship. As for their return, some technicalities are involved,” an Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Thursday.
The ship’s seizure took place hours before Iran carried out its first-ever direct attack on Israel, launching hundreds of drones and missiles.
The Israeli military said nearly all of the projectiles were intercepted.
Israel and the US have denounced the seizure of the ship as an act of “piracy.”
Regional tensions have soared since war broke out nearly seven months ago between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.