Lebanon hospitals cut off, running out of supplies

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hospitals were running out of food, fuel and other supplies in southern Lebanon on Thursday and aid groups said fighting and a ban on movement meant they could not reach an estimated 100,000 people trapped in the area.

The U.N. World Food Program urged a cessation of hostilities to allow aid supplies to reach the needy.

"Above all, we require a cessation of hostilities by both sides to allow humanitarian aid through," Zlatan Milisic, WFP emergency coordinator in Lebanon, said in a statement. "Our aid operation is like a patient starved of oxygen, facing paralysis, verging on death, if we can't open up our vital supply lines."

The destruction of bridges and Israel's refusal to give safety guarantees to aid convoys was crippling the efforts of WFP, which is coordinating the U.N. relief effort in Lebanon, to organize overland transport of aid, he said.

The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said the situation in southern Lebanon was the worst crisis it was dealing with outside the Darfur region of Sudan.

"I am not at all satisfied with the humanitarian access we are receiving. It is urgent that we have better humanitarian access. We also urge respect for humanitarian law," ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger said in Jerusalem.

"We need to evacuate wounded civilians and extract dead people from the rubble," he said.

Medecins Sans Frontieres said Israel's warning that it might attack any vehicle south of the Litani river that had not been given security clearance would worsen the plight of civilians.

"The people in the south are afraid. They are terrified to move," Rowan Gillies, president of MSF International, said in Beirut. "To forbid all forms of movement, without distinction, will lead to even more civilian deaths and suffering."

MSF said it had suffered close calls with shelling and air strikes close to two of its convoys earlier this week. On Monday, warplanes attacked two cars traveling near a U.N. Nations convoy, killing three people.

CIVILIAN AREAS

Israel has drawn international criticism for attacking targets in civilian areas. At least 1,011 people have been killed in Lebanon during the 29-day-old conflict with Hizbollah.

Israel, which has seen 121 people killed, mostly soldiers, launched its offensive in Lebanon after Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.

WFP said it had sent a 15-truck convoy to the eastern town of Baalbek and was trying to send a 10-truck convoy to Nabatiyeh in the south, but had not received security guarantees. The convoy would travel on Friday if it got the go-ahead.

It said two ships carrying aid were due in Beirut at the weekend, one carrying high energy biscuits and the other carrying 2,750 tonnes of wheatflour, pasta and pulses.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said rising insecurity and damage to roads and bridges had almost completely disrupted the food chain. "This, together with massive population displacements, is clearly an ingredient for a major food crisis," it said in a statement.

MSF said hospitals were quickly running out of food, medical and other supplies in Tyre and other southern cities. The worst shortage was diesel fuel to run generators.

The shortages coincide with heavy fighting that has brought a new wave of casualties to southern hospitals. More than 3,000 people have been wounded in Lebanon so far and the United Nations says up to 900,000 people have been displaced.

"We're trying to reduce the number of people who have been wounded turning into people who have died," said Gillies.

"It's very basic. If we can't give the local authorities the ability to do that, the consequences for civilians are dire."

(Additional reporting by Luke Baker in Jerusalem)