Caretaker Public Health Minister Firas Abiad received on Monday a "32 tons" emergency aid shipment provided by the "World Health Organization" to Lebanon. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Caretaker Public Health Minister Firas Abiad received 32 tons of emergency aid on Monday from the World Health Organization to Lebanon, which included "medical supplies and medicines designated for treating war injuries," the state-run National News Agency reported.
The shipment arrived in a charter plane this morning at the Middle East Airlines cargo terminal at Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut in the presence of the representative of the World Health Organization in Lebanon, Abdel Nasser Abu Bakr.
The shipment comes as part of efforts to raise Lebanon's health sector readiness to confront any possible escalation in Israeli aggression against Lebanon.
Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in clashes for months along the Lebanese-Israeli border in parallel with the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza. The Middle East has recently witnessed a significant escalation in violence triggered by an Israeli airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs on Tuesday night and a separate attack in Tehran that killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.
On Thursday, Abiad said that Lebanon's medical supplies and the amount of medicines are sufficient for at least four months in case of war.
Abiad acknowledged that the health sector suffers from a shortage of medical resources, but stressed that a "plan must be developed for how to use the available resources," noting that "the Health Ministry's plan aims to work on training the sector to deal with the wounded."
He added that the ministry "covers any war-wounded in coordination with hospitals."