BEIRUT, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- Saeda Abdallah holds her child tightly and tenderly, wrapping his thin body in an old blanket to protect him from the November frost creeping into the shelters of displaced families in the mountainous areas of eastern Lebanon.
In a side room on the first floor of Joub Jannine Public School, which has been turned into a shelter for displaced Lebanese after the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah intensified, 30-year-old Saeda appears sad and pale. She worried about the five-month winter ahead and its impact on her infant.
"We have entered the winter and are stripped of necessities to protect ourselves from the cold and storms," she told Xinhua. "The first rain that hit Lebanon a few days ago is one of the calamities that awaits us, including stronger storms and heavy snow," she told Xinhua.
"As the rainy season arrives alongside Israeli military operations, we feel cold and fearful, unable to distinguish between the thunder of storms and the roar of shells," she said.
Since Sept. 23, the Israeli army has been conducting intensive air attacks on Lebanon in a dangerous escalation with Hezbollah, forcing hundreds of thousands of Lebanese to leave their homes for safer shelters.
Washing her children's clothes with cold water in a plastic pot, Salma Awad, a housewife from the Lebanese border town of Kfar Kila displaced to the same school, told Xinhua, "The school halls are spacious, and when the night comes, it feels as if we are sleeping in the open air due to the extreme cold."
She added the distributed mattresses and blankets are thin, suited for summer, and offer little protection against the cold winter, with temperatures in the mountainous areas sometimes dropping below zero.
"When we fled our houses, we were unable to pack everything we needed," she said, adding that donor agencies have so far been unable to meet the needs of the displaced, especially for heating equipment, diesel, hot water, electricity, kitchen utensils, and cleaning materials.
Lebanon's Minister of Environment Nasser Yassin told Xinhua that the number of displaced people is increasing almost daily, exceeding 1.3 million in the latest census.
According to the ministry, 1,151 shelters for displaced people have been opened in the capital Beirut and many other Lebanese regions, with 948 already at full capacity. Efforts are underway to open new shelters to accommodate the displaced people.
"We are also contacting humanitarian organizations to secure heating supplies," an official from the ministry said.
Meanwhile, Lebanon's Ministry of Energy and Water estimates that 19.5 million U.S. dollars will be required to pay for the fuel needed for four months of heating, power generation, and water pumping in the displaced people's shelters. For that purpose, the Lebanese cabinet agreed to allocate 1 trillion Lebanese pounds (about 11 million dollars), equivalent to 57 percent of the required sum.
In the shelter center courtyard in the Lebanese city of Joub Jannine, 10-year-old Jamal Yahya plays basketball several hours a day to combat the cold.
"We had left our homes in a hurry wearing summer clothes; we need heating, winter clothes, and woolen blankets to protect us from the bitter cold in this weather," said Yahya.
Houida Al-Turk, governor of Nabatieh, called on all displaced people to register their names on a website operated by the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities to receive assistance throughout the winter.
"There is a severe shortage in many of the displaced people's urgent needs, most notably heating supplies, winter clothes, shoes, mattresses, thick blankets, and medicines," said Aline Hammoud, a supervisor from a donor association.
In order to provide medical treatment for a large number of people in shelters, particularly those who have experienced psychological trauma as a result of the conflict, Hammoud further underlined the urgent need to hire psychological therapists.■
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