Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September/October 2006, pages 26-27

Special Report

Lebanon Urgently Needs Donations to Prevent Humanitarian Catastrophe

By Delinda C. Hanley

AMERICANS WHO are appalled by Israel’s ruthless assault on Lebanon and Gaza and by the Bush administration’s heartless response need not watch helplessly. Humanitarian aid organizations are trying to assist one million Lebanese—out of a population of 3.9 million—who have been displaced in the first month of Israeli bombing. Lebanon’s financial losses so far are estimated at $4 billion, and the devastation Israel has wreaked will require long-term recovery efforts. 

Israel’s destruction of roads, bridges, power stations, factories and even fishing boats has halted production of many local food and non-food items. Food prices have soared by 30 to 50 percent and there are massive water and fuel shortages. According to the Lebanese government, unemployment rates have reached 75 percent.

As of early August, relief organizations (see following list) had raised about $35 million—far short of what is needed. Distribution of aid has been difficult and dangerous because of frequent Israel Defense Force air strikes and its targeting of ambulances and relief trucks. Humanitarian organizations have relied on taxis, sedans and SUVs to deliver desperately needed relief items to isolated communities near the southern border.

Contributions to the following relief organizations are U.S. tax-deductible. For additional information visit the Lebanese Embassy Web site, <www.lebanonembassyus.org>. Many of the organizations below also assist Palestinians, who also are struggling to survive in the occupied territories. See the Washington Report’s Web site, <wrmea.com>, for more of those charitable organizations.

American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA): 1522 K St. NW, Suite 202 • Washington, DC 20005-1270 • (202) 347-2558 • <www.anera.org> 

Provides emergency relief and medical supplies, health and hygiene kits, and other essential items. Nearly half of the contents of the kits are locally made, keeping Lebanese people employed. With the help of other local organizations ANERA is providing services, including hot lunches, to displaced Lebanese now living in parks and schools. 

American University of Beirut/Medical Emergency Fund: 3 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, 8th Floor • New York, NY 10017-2303 • (212) 583-7600 • <www.aub.edu.lb>

AUB volunteers provide health services—including medical assessments, medications and, more recently, vaccinations—to refugees in displacement centers located in the Beirut area. AUB is collecting medical supplies and medications from physicians and pharmacists in the U.S. See Web site for details.

Hariri Foundation Lebanon Relief Fund:7501 Wisconsin Ave., Suite 715 • Bethesda, MD 20814-3602 • (301) 656-1666 • e-mail < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > • Web site <www.haririfoundationusa.org>

Established in 1985 in the U.S. by businessman and former prime minister Rafik B. Al-Hariri, the foundation concentrates on Lebanon’s human resources. Donations to the Hariri Foundation’s Lebanon Relief Fund will be used to provide emergency medical services, food, water, shelter, clothing and refugee relocation. After Israel withdraws from Lebanon, the foundation will—once again—help rebuild Beirut. N.B.: Do not respond to a fax or e-mail purporting to come from Hariri’s widow, Nazek Audi Hariri—it’s a scam.

International Orthodox Christian Charities:P.O. Box 630225 • Baltimore, MD 21263-0225 • (877) 803-4622 •  <www.iocc.org>

Many of the estimated 128,000 displaced Lebanese have taken shelter in public schools where IOCC has been repairing infrastructure and conducting an education/feeding program since 2001. IOCC delivers food and hygiene parcels to 892 families in the Maten and Alley areas, and reaches the more dangerous regions of the Chouf during lulls in fighting.

Islamic Relief USA: P.O. Box 6098 • Burbank, CA 91510 • (888) 479-4968 • <www.irw.org>

Provides urgently needed food packages, portable water, blankets, mattresses, and medicine. Having allocated $1 million in funding to instantly respond to Lebanon’s humanitarian crisis, Islamic Relief has launched a worldwide $5 million emergency appeal to further help the victims of this crisis.

KinderUSA: P.O. Box 224846 • Dallas, TX 75222-9785 • (972) 664-1991 • <www.kinderusa.org>

Provides hygiene and food packets for displaced families in Lebanon. Also assists children in the West Bank, Gaza and Jordan through both immediate relief and longer-term community rehabilitation, including food, temporary shelter, clean water, sanitation services and medical care.

Life for Relief and Development: P.O. Box 236 • Southfield, MI 48037 • (248) 424-7493 • <www.lifeusa.org>

Provides 1,000 hot meals dailyto displaced people in Beirut, and food baskets to families who are hosting refugees, as well as medical care and food for 180,000 Lebanese who fled to Syria. Life is also sending supplies to Tripoli, and the north and west Beqaa Valley region.

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders: 333 7th Ave., 2nd Floor • New York, NY 10001 • (212) 679-6800 • Fax: (212) 679-7016 •  <http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org>

Teams are distributing relief goods to the most needy, who have received cooking equipment, blankets, stoves, and hygiene kits containing soap, razors, toothbrushes, etc. MSF teams are improving water and sanitation facilities at sites where displaced people have gathered, and visiting villages close to the Israeli border to deliver badly needed drugs to medical staff. MSF also helps evacuate people who have been trapped in heavily bombed villages close to the border.

Mercy Corps: Dept. W • 3015 SW 1st Ave. • Portland, OR 97201 • Phone: (800) 292-3355 • Fax: (503) 796-6844 • <www.mercycorps.org>

Distributes food, water, hygiene kits, blankets and other humanitarian relief to 40,000 displaced Lebanese families living in schools in the hills southeast of Beirut. On Aug. 1 two Mercy Corps truckloads of critical food supplies and blankets reached the beleaguered town of Marjayoun, one of the first organized relief convoys to reach this devastated part of southern Lebanon since the current crisis began.

Mosaic Foundation “Emergency Appeal”: 1420 Beverly Rd., Suite 240 • McLean, VA 22101 • (703) 288-4500 • <www.mosaicfound.org>

To help more than 5,000 Lebanese Red Cross volunteers and staff, write “for Lebanese Red Cross” on your check to the Mosaic Foundation, an American tax-deductible organization founded by the spouses of Arab ambassadors to the U.S. The Lebanese Red Cross is working under dangerous conditions, evacuating the wounded and the sick, and distributing essential relief and medicines to displaced families. Its paramedics provide the country’s only ambulance service, and its health teams deliver fuel for the running of essential civilian infrastructure (hospitals, dispensaries and water pumps), ready-to-eat meals, family food parcels and blankets. (Contributions made directly to the Lebanese Red Cross or to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, <www.ifrc.org>, are not tax-deductible in the U.S., so the Mosaic Foundation is a good alternative.)

If you choose instead to donate to the American Red Cross, be sure your check is marked “for Lebanon.” (The American Red Cross has now repaid $24 million of the $45 million in dues it withheld from the International Red Cross and Red Crescent until Israel’s Magen David Adom was admitted as a member in June 2006.)

Near East Foundation:420 Lexington Ave., Suite 2516 • New York, NY 10170 • (212) 867-0064 • <www.neareast.org>

Teamed up with five long-time partner Lebanese organizations in the most hard-hit areas to provide food, medicine, first aid and hygiene kits, and sleeping bags—particularly for children, the elderly, and women—NEF will accept in-kind donations of large quantities of water, shelter, food, blankets and medical supplies.

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund: P.O. Box 1926 • Kent, OH 44240 • (330) 678-2645 • Fax: (330) 678-2661 • e-mail: < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > • <www.pcrf.net> 

Provides basic necessities for refugees in south Lebanon and Gaza, and distributes milk and diapers to poor mothers who are in need of such aid for their small children, particularly in Sidon, Lebanon and in central Gaza’s Maghazi refugee camp.

René Moawad Foundation: 3231 P St., NW, 2nd Flr. • Washington, DC 20007 • (202) 338-3535 • e-mail: < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > • <www.rmf.org.lb>

With more than 900 civilians killed, 3,000 civilians wounded, and more than half of Lebanon’s infrastructure destroyed, the country needs help to rebuild. This foundation already is hard at work meeting the basic needs of the displaced population now sheltered in schools, churches, mosques and public areas.

United Nations Relief and Works  Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA): Friends of UNRWA Association, Inc. • 605 Third Avenue, Suite 2400 • New York, NY 10158 • Fax (212) 370-3009 • e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it • Web site: <www.friendsunrwa.org/>

UNRWA refugee camps in the south and in Beirut have taken in thousands of displaced Lebanese families. The “old refugees” are sharing their rooms, schools, mosques and supplies with the “new refugees.” UNRWA provides the people who arrive in its camps with mattresses, pillows, sheets, towels, kitchen kits, detergents and basic toilet items. Displaced families receive food rations consisting of sugar, rice, lentils, broad beans, white beans, milk and cooking oil. UNRWA is appealing for $7.2 million in emergency humanitarian interventions in Lebanon and Syria as part of the Lebanon Flash Appeal issued in cooperation with other U.N. agencies and humanitarian organizations.

World Vision: P.O. Box 9716 • Federal Way, WA 98063-9716 • (888) 511-6598 • <www.worldvision.org>

Has assisted nearly 30,000 people seeking shelter in schools, places of worship, homes, parking garages and other structures within seven of nine World Vision-assisted area development programs in southern, central and northern Lebanon. Current planning envisions aid shipments including collapsible water containers, 96,000 water purification tablets, two water purification units, 2,000 hygiene kits, and medicine.

The Zakat Foundation of America: P.O. Box 639 • Worth, IL 60482 • Phone: (708) 499-6151 • Fax (708) 499-6154 • <www.thezakat.org>

Delivers urgently needed food aid, clean drinking water, blankets, mattresses and basic medical aid. Its main area of operation is in Mount Lebanon, at public schools that have become shelters for displaced families from Beirut and further south. Zakat has hired doctors and nurses to help treat victims.

Delinda Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

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