Belgium is to provide public hospitals in Lebanon with medical supplies worth €150,000, including gloves and needles from its strategic stock, and compresses, bandages and thermometers.
The delivery will be made in the short term - possibly next week - through the federal intervention team, B-FAST, outgoing Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke said on Wednesday.
‘What is currently taking place in the region defies all imagination," Vandenbroucke said. "The escalating violence is creating one of the worst humanitarian crises in the past 25 years.
"At this very moment, millions of children are living in fear day and night in Lebanon, in Gaza, in the West Bank and in Israel. Tens of thousands dead, a vast majority women and children, tens of thousands wounded, and meanwhile millions fleeing because the extremes hold political and military power."
The Lebanese government has submitted a Request For Asistance to the European Union. France, among others, also responded positively to the request. The Belgian package, put together by the Federal Health Ministry, should help cover the highest needs in Lebanese hospitals.
Belgium is working with several humanitarian partners to provide assistance to civilians on the run. These include the United Nations Joint Emergency Relief Fund, the Lebanon Humanitarian Fund and the Emergency Fund of the International Federation of the Red Cross.
According to the Office of the Health Minister, extra money can be released very quickly from these funds so that the organisations present can quickly scale up their activities.
Belgium also contributes through the UNHCR and the International Red Cross to meet the needs of refugees in the region, including in Syria and Lebanon.
