Beirut [Lebanon], October 6: As Lebanon endured another night of intense Israeli bombing, UN humanitarians and partners described how people desperate to flee the violence found the country's main border crossing into Syria cut off by a new dawn strike, UN News reported on Friday. This forced them to navigate a "huge crater" and rubble on foot to reach the other side.
"There were two strikes and a huge crater was created in the no-man's land between the Syrian and the Lebanese side. It's very hard for vehicles still to go through this road," said Rula Amin, Senior Communications Advisor for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) for the Middle East and North Africa.
Speaking from Amman, Amin explained that people at the Masnaa crossing were so "desperate to flee Lebanon that they walked actually through that destroyed road".
Hundreds of thousands of people have crossed into Syria via this route in the past 10 days, according to the UN International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
Mathieu Luciano, IOM Head of Office in Lebanon, noted, "The conflict is intensifying." Speaking from Beirut, he added that between 21st September and 3rd October, approximately 235,000 people had crossed into Syria overland, including 82,000 Lebanese and 152,000 Syrians. Citing Lebanese authorities, Luciano added that during the same period, 50,000 mainly Lebanese and 10,000 Syrians had flown out of Beirut airport, with around 1,000 fleeing by sea.
Around one million people are estimated to have been displaced in Lebanon since last October, amid escalating exchanges of fire on both sides of the UN-patrolled Blue Line, which separates Lebanon and Israel, following the outbreak of war in Gaza.
IOM data indicates that as of 2nd October, 400,000 people were displaced in the last two weeks alone, amid ongoing Israeli military operations in Lebanon, including ground incursions in the south.
Source: Emirates News Agency