00:00We're going to focus now on the humanitarian situation in Lebanon with Hassan al-Sayed. Hassan, you're a field coordinator
00:07for the NGO Solidarité Internationale based in Lebanon. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us.
00:13First of all, just tell me where you are now and what the situation is like there.
00:18Currently, I'm in Saida. So Saida is like one of the big cities of the south. The targeting in Saida
00:26is quite low. So it became a shelter city with a huge number of displaced people seeking refuge here in
00:35Saida. So we're conducting our operations in the south from here, from Saida.
00:40So Hassan, we are hearing some 800,000 people have been displaced in a little more than a week. What
00:46have the locals that you've been seeing, the displaced people you've been talking to, told you about how they were
00:52forced to flee their homes?
00:54Yeah, I mean, the figure 800,000, this is roughly one sixth of the country's population. 15% of the
01:03Lebanese population has been displaced in just a few days. People are seeking refuge anywhere.
01:09People had to leave within minutes in the middle of the night, taking nothing but their families. They took hours
01:22and hours to reach what they hope be safe areas.
01:29And now you have around 100,000 people living in collective shelters, so schools, with very low access to water,
01:40no food. All basic necessities are lacking today for most of the populations that have been displaced.
01:48So given that, what are NGOs like yours doing to make sure these people have aid to survive?
01:56To be honest, we're doing what we can, given the limited resources that the humanitarian sector has today.
02:04We realigned some of our current projects. We're in contact with donors to be able to scale up.
02:12We started distribution, Solidarity International started distribution as of day one of the crisis,
02:17targeting collective shelters, targeting collective shelters, with food parcels, with hygiene kits, with different types of interventions.
02:29But the huge amount of needs, the huge number of people in need, you know, it's really complicated for the
02:39humanitarian response to be equivalent to the size of the needs today.
02:46So we're looking into scaling up. The whole community, the whole humanitarian community is looking for scaling up, but the
02:55reactivity of the donor is still lacking, unfortunately.
02:58Some donors added funding, but still, again, in comparison to the greatness of the crisis, to the greatness of the
03:08needs, to the huge amount of people displaced, this is still extremely low.
03:14And just maybe one thing, we talk a lot about displaced population, but let's not forget people who actually are
03:24living under daily bombing and who do not have the capacity to move.
03:31And this is very important. Like half of the country, you have people living in villages with no markets anymore,
03:38no supply anymore, no health services anymore, and people who do not have the choice, the luxury of being displaced.
03:47And this is a huge catastrophe in the making, because what we call hard to reach areas, areas in the
03:54south, in Nabatiyeh, in Bintijbayl, in Marjayu, in Sur, in Thier, people are still there.
04:05Hundreds of thousands of people are still there. Many of those, like female-headed households, people with special needs, disabilities,
04:14people who cannot move, who are stuck, who are being besieged, bombed on a daily basis.
04:20And our work today at Solidarity International, our responsibility as humanitarian workers is not only to support the IDPs in
04:29collective shelters, out of collective shelters, but also these people who are stuck in these areas and who absolutely need
04:38our support.
04:38Indeed. And in addition, of course, to all just the purely practical and physical support, I imagine there's also an
04:44enormous psychological need for people who are under these daily bombings.
04:48Is there any plan in place to help people who deal with this constant threat and this fear?
04:55In the humanitarian sector, we have what we call psychosocial first aid support.
05:01So this is like the first line response to this kind of trauma, which everybody is living.
05:06I mean, I was talking with an elderly woman, a woman who was living in a collective shelter.
05:14And to be honest, like she told me she was doing sahur, you know, the meal just before the beginning
05:20of the day in Ramadan.
05:22It was like around 4 a.m.
05:25And they got the evacuation order from the Israeli authorities and they had to leave with nothing within five minutes.
05:35I mean, she was crying, she was asking for support and we were providing support.
05:41But to be honest, as you're saying, like the psychological trauma for these people who had to live in this
05:49kind of situation and their current living conditions are so complicated.
05:55The psychological trauma is just unimaginable.
05:59Hassan, thank you so much for sharing all of that with us.
06:02And thank you so much as well for all of your work and the work that you're doing with the
06:05NGO Solidarities International in Lebanon.
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