Near-unprecedented casualty figures from Israeli air strikes in Lebanon on Monday are an undercount, a top UN official in the country told i, adding that there were “commonalities” with the devastation seen during the war in Gaza.
Unicef, the UN’s agency for children, is providing emergency services across Lebanon as the country reels from a series of Israeli attacks that have stretched Civil Response teams beyond their limits.
The agency announced on Tuesday that in addition to 50 confirmed deaths of children in attacks that killed at least 558 people, other children are known to be missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
Ettie Higgins, Unicef deputy representative to Lebanon, said the official death toll – the highest in a single day since at least 1990 – was “absolutely” an undercount.
“Colleagues have said to me that they are still missing neighbours and family members who have not been accounted for,” she said. “The Civil Defence teams have not been able to keep up with the search and rescues, and it means that the number of those killed will definitely increase.”
Reports of people missing under rubble, rocketing death tolls, and widespread devastation have drawn comparisons with Israel’s war on Gaza, where more than 41,000 people have been killed and much of the built environment has been destroyed after almost a year of Israeli bombardment.
Dr Higgins says the disregard for the welfare of civilians in Monday’s attacks is similar to that seen in Gaza.
“Yesterday was Lebanon’s worst day in 18 years. This violence has to stop immediately or the consequences will be unconscionable.” – Ettie Higgins, @UNICEFLebanon.
More on the impact of the attacks in Lebanon on children. ⬇️https://t.co/lXyF9Se6xy
— UNICEF (@UNICEF) September 24, 2024
“There are definitely commonalities emerging, and one of those would be the wide-scale destruction of civilian areas, the disregard of the safety of communities, the large numbers of children and women being killed,” she said. “It’s a really clear indication that international humanitarian law is not being respected.”
Another echo of Gaza is the wholesale displacement of civilians, said Dr Higgins. “Some families have been displaced three, four, five times already and this is continuing as the war spreads across Lebanon.”
Israel says it is targeting militants and alleges that Hezbollah is storing weapons in civilian homes. Israeli officials and military leaders have urged civilians to flee from “Hezbollah sites.” Analysts say the warnings are of limited value as the militant group does not share the locations of weapons with the public.
Dr Higgins said emergency services have been stretched thin by the crisis and first responders have been targeted in Israeli strikes, which has had a knock-on effect of undermining aid distribution efforts.
An estimated 200,000 Lebanese civilians have been displaced from the south of the country and emergency needs from water to blankets and medical supplies are sharply increasing. But few aircraft are willing to fly into a war zone.
“We are looking at flying in more medical supplies, because there have been so many injuries, with more than 2,000 injured since yesterday,” said Dr Higgins. “But the problem is that we are finding it difficult to find aircraft to come into Lebanon to bring the supplies that are so urgently needed.”
