Edinburgh charity warns of 'desperate' situation in Lebanon amid hopes ceasefire will hold

Lebanese people living in Scotland cautiously welcomed news of last week’s ceasefire between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah.

But those with relatives back home say the situation remains fraught and many buildings have been destroyed.

Myriam Ghaith, from Newhaven, has been volunteering with Edinburgh Direct Aid, sending clothes and supplies to those displaced by the conflict in the Middle East.

Her sister, Victoria, was forced to flee her home when Israel began its latest offensive in southern Lebanon.

Myriam said: “She was a makeup artist, she lost her job. She’s feeling very anxious about the whole war.

“For me, it’s very difficult being here, far away from her. We’ve already lived a war in 2006 in Lebanon so we’ve already got the trauma of that war and for her, and for me, seeing this happening again, it’s like a cycle.

“We want peace in the region, that would be my message – but we have hope. We know that after the destruction we’re going to rebuild everything. That’s the hope we have in our hearts.”

Edinburgh Direct Aid has delivered relief to people in war-torn-countries for more than 30 years.

Since the conflict in Lebanon intensified, the charity has ramped up its efforts to support those displaced in the country’s capital, Beirut.

On Wednesday, a ceasefire deal was agreed that gave Hezbollah 60 days to end its armed presence in southern Lebanon. Israeli forces must withdraw from the area over the same period.

If it holds, the ceasefire would bring an end to nearly 14 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which escalated in mid-September into all-out war and threatened to pull Hezbollah’s patron, Iran, and Israel’s closest ally, the US, into a broader regional conflagration.

Maggie Tookey, a volunteer with Edinburgh Direct Aid, has recently returned from Beirut and says many people in the city face a desperate situation

“You hear the bombing all the time,” she said.

“I remember on Mount Lebanon there was a huge shelter that was a school, a big empty school, but it was full of displaced people. Volunteer managers at the shelter wanted to lay out all the clothing, so we did and it was mayhem.

“They were desperate for just about everything they could grab and you can understand it because some people have lost everything. Many, many thousands of people have lost everything coming to Beirut, they only have what they stood up in.”

More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon since the start of the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials.