In response to the growing violence in Lebanon, the World Food Programme said on Sunday that it has begun an emergency feeding program for a million people.
The Rome-based organization said in a statement that it was providing hot meals, bread, ready-to-eat food rations, and food parcels to shelters all throughout the nation, citing “a further increase of the conflict this weekend as highlighted the need for a rapid humanitarian reaction.”
Two days after murdering Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Iran-backed organization, in bombing attacks outside of Beirut, Israel said on Sunday that it was launching fresh airstrikes on many Hezbollah locations in Lebanon.
His death signaled an unprecedented increase in the almost a year-long cross-border skirmishes between Israel and Hezbollah following the latter’s Palestinian allies Hamas’s dramatic attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
According to the World Food Program, the bombing in Lebanon is “compounding the vulnerability of a population overburdened by accumulated problems.”
“WFP assistance has attained hundreds of thousands of newly displaced individuals in just a few days,” said Matthew Hollingworth, the national director of the program in Lebanon, in a statement.
He continued, urging the world community to raise $105 million to finance the operation until the end of the year. “As the crisis expands, we are getting ready to assist up to one million individuals with a mix of cash and nutritional support,” he said.
