BEIRUT — Committees will be formed in Baalbeck to survey damage from Israeli attacks, Mayor Mustafa al-Shel said during a press conference held in the north-eastern Lebanese city on Friday. Shel added that the initiative would be building on work already underway to assess the destruction and evaluate needs going forward.
The mayor congratulated those returning to their homes, mourned those who were killed in Israeli attacks and wished a recovery for the wounded. He responded to recent criticism of the process of distributing food rations in Baalbeck, by those who were concerned about unfair limits on who qualified to receive the aid.
Shel said that the 5,150 quotas received by the municipality were for the people who stayed in the city and not for those who are currently returning to their homes or those who received allocations in the areas to which they had been displaced. He clarified that the food was being distributed according to lists that were given to the Baalbeck municiaplity by the federation of municipalities, which, in turn, was coordinating with Parliament on the distribution of aid throughout the country.
More than 1.4 million people in Lebanon were displaced by the Israeli assault on the country. The Israeli army announced on Friday that its airforce had bombed more than 12,500 sites across Lebanon in the two months of intense aerial campaign, as part of its war with Hezbollah, in parallel with the ongoing war against Gaza.
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