GENEVA: The United Nations said Tuesday that tens of thousands of people had fled their homes in Lebanon since Monday, amid Israeli strikes.
“We are gravely concerned about the serious escalation in the attacks that we saw yesterday,” UN refugee agency spokesman Matthew Saltmarsh told reporters in Geneva.
“Tens of thousands of people were forced from their homes yesterday and overnight, and the numbers continue to grow,” he said.
Israeli air strikes killed at least 492 people on Monday, including 35 children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, marking the deadliest bombardment in nearly two decades.
Longtime foes Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in near-daily cross-border exchanges of fire since Palestinian militant group Hamas staged an unprecedented attack on Israel last October 7.
Monday’s bombardment of Lebanon was by far the largest, not just in the past year, but since the war between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group in the summer of 2006.
“This is a region that has already been devastated by war and a country that knows suffering all too well,” Saltmarsh said.
“The toll on civilians is unacceptable.”
Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the UN rights office, also said the agency was “extremely alarmed by the sharp escalation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
Shamdasani called on “all parties to immediately cease the violence and to ensure the protection of civilians.”
The UN children’s agency meanwhile decried the impact on young people in Lebanon.
“We are warning today that any further escalation in this conflict will be absolutely catastrophic for all children in Lebanon,” said Ettie Higgins, UNICEF Deputy Representative in Lebanon, speaking via video link from Beirut.
“Yesterday was Lebanon’s worst day in 18 years. This violence has to stop immediately, or the consequences will be unconscionable.”

GENEVA: The UN human rights chief on Tuesday called on anyone with influence in the Middle East or elsewhere to seek to avert any further escalation in hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, voicing alarm at the sharp escalation.
Israel’s military said on Tuesday it struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon overnight, a day after it launched a wave of airstrikes against the Iran-backed group’s sites in Lebanon’s deadliest day in decades. Nearly 500 people have been killed and tens of thousands have fled from areas of southern Lebanon.

“UN High Commissioner Volker Türk calls on all States and actors with influence in the region and beyond to avert further escalation and do everything they can to ensure full respect for international law,” Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for Turk said at a Geneva press briefing. “

The methods and means of warfare that are being used raises very serious concerns about whether this is compliant with international humanitarian law,” she added.
Asked about reports that Israel had warned people through phone messages ahead of the strikes, she said: “Whether you’ve sent out a warning you’re telling civilians to flee, doesn’t make it OK to then strike those areas, knowing full well that the impact on civilians will be huge...”

At the same press briefing, Abdinasir Abubakar, a WHO official in Lebanon, said that some hospitals in the country were “overwhelmed” by the thousands of wounded people arriving.

Four health care workers had been killed on Monday, he added.
“We have some evidence, and we have some documentation that shows that at least there were some attacks on health facilities, even the ambulances as well,” he told the briefing, condemning the impact on Lebanon’s fragile health sector.
The UN refugee agency’s spokesperson Matthew Saltmarsh said more people are expected to flee their homes and that the agency is seeking to identify new shelters for displaced people around Beirut and the Bekaa valley.
“We’re looking at tens of thousands (of displaced), but we expect that those figures will start to rise,” he said. “The situation is extremely alarming. It’s very chaotic, and we are doing what we can to support government.”