BEIRUT: Lebanon’s interior minister Bassam Mawlawi said all measures were being taken to maintain the safety of Beirut’s Rafic Hariri airport in a televised address on Thursday.
He emphasized that security and military agencies were doing their part to maintain security of the country.
Mawlawi said Lebanon was seeking to increase the number of displaced people shelters in Beirut.
“Unity is the way to maintain Lebanon’s security, there is no place for strife among the Lebanese,” he said.
Israel has refused to rule out strikes on Beirut’s civilian airport and its access roads, even as thousands of people continue to flee the country by air and road every day.
United Nations officials warned Wednesday that Lebanon was staring down a “catastrophic” humanitarian crisis as the number of internally displaced people hit 600,000 and Israel presses its offensive against Hezbollah militants.
Hezbollah said its fighters were locked in clashes with Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, using rocket-propelled weapons to repel Israeli attempts to breach the border.
“Lebanon finds itself facing a conflict and a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions,” Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, told a briefing.
Israel has intensified air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon since September 23, leaving more than 1,190 people dead and forcing more than a million to flee, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
The UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon Imran Riza said that Lebanon was facing “one of the deadliest periods” in its recent history, reporting that 600,000 people are internally displaced — over 350,000 of whom are children.
Israel’s ground forces crossed into Lebanon on September 30 in response to Hezbollah rocket and artillery attacks over the past year that have forced tens of thousands of Israelis out of their homes in border areas.
