Aid workers have started daily supply runs into areas of south Lebanon worst hit by Israeli bombardment but some villages remain cut off, the International Committee for the Red Cross said today.
The agency said it had set up two southern bases, in the coastal town of Tyre and the town of Marjayoun further east, and was sending medical assistance to border villages needing urgent help after two weeks of war.
"Things have not stabilised yet. There are a lot of people stuck in the south," said Andreas Wigger, ICRC head of delegation in Lebanon. "We are in the early stages".
While the United Nations says it is still waiting for Israeli guarantees of safe passage before distributing aid to the south, the Red Cross started operations four days ago.
It is concentrating on 200 villages in the hills of southern Lebanon, where heavy bombardment has forced tens of thousands to flee and left others stranded. Many remain beyond its reach.
"Today we could not go to Rmaish, they are in dire need there," he said, referring to a village barely one mile from the border with Israel and close to Bint Jbeil, where Israeli and Hizbollah forces have fought fierce battles.
Wigger said the ICRC moved only with prior consent from the Israeli army. A truck carrying medical supplies from the United Arab Emirates was hit in eastern Lebanon last week, killing its driver, and six Lebanese Red Cross workers were injured when they were targeted in an air strike.
Speaking after a ceremony at the US embassy where he took delivery of emergency medical aid from Washington, Wigger said the ICRC was bringing in supplies from Syria and had stocks in Cyprus which it hopes to ship to Lebanon soon. Lebanon says more than 500,000 people have been displaced by the fighting and 150,000 more have left for neighbouring Syria.
The fighting, which started after Hizbollah guerrillas seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, has killed 413 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 42 Israelis.
United Nations emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland launched an appeal this week for $150 million to provide health, shelter, food, water and sanitation to hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon over the next few months.
UN agencies say they are still largely blocked from bringing supplies to Lebanon, despite Israel's pledge to allow relief shipments through its air and sea blockade of Lebanon.
Independent medical aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres said Lebanese teams had managed to ward off medical catastrophe for now, but local supplies were running low and pledges of aid will amount to little if they cannot not get through. "
The risks of a deterioration in sanitary conditions are real and only the organisation of a major international rescue operation in the coming days will avoid an even bigger catastrophe," MSF director general Pierre Salignon said.
"Access to civilians in the zones most at risk is practically impossible. This is unacceptable and risks having tragic consequences in the future," he said.