Falcon powers – The National accompanied Red Cross workers on trip to assist about 60,000 people still living near the border with Israel despite daily violence
It is 6.30 in the morning, but the small group of Red Cross workers and journalists is already buzzing with energy as they prepare for the journey from Beirut to Lebanon’s deep south where border communities have been shattered by months of Israeli attacks.
“Don’t worry,” Roy Al Chidiac says as he hands out a security waiver. “This is how we’ll protect you,” he adds, pointing to his International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) badge with a wit that the early hour has obviously not dulled.
The small group is about to participate in one of the biggest humanitarian campaigns launched by the ICRC in Lebanon, in collaboration with the Lebanese Red Cross, since the border conflict between Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and the Israeli military began eight months ago.
The month-long initiative, launched at the end of May, aims to give food parcels to about 8,000 families across 51 locations in southern Lebanon within 5km of the Blue Line, the UN-demarcated border between Lebanon and Israel.
Hezbollah opened a front on Israel’s northern border in support of the Palestinian group Hamas, its ally, on October 8. Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after its deadly attack on southern Israel a day earlier, which sparked a deadly Israeli retaliation that has left the territory in ruins and killed more than 36,700 people.
Since then, Hezbollah have traded fire almost daily, mostly confined to the border area. The attacks have killed at least 455 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but including 88 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
