UN says 90,000 displaced in Lebanon since Monday amid Israeli strikes

The United Nations said Wednesday that some 90,000 people had been displaced in Lebanon this week, as Israel pounds what it says are Hezbollah targets across the country and the Lebanese group attacks Israel.

Since Monday, the UN's International Organization for Migration has recorded "90,530 newly displaced persons", a statement said.

Among them, "many of the more than 111,000 people displaced since October... are likely to have been secondarily displaced", a statement from the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs added, referring to the start of the cross-border hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israeli raids on Lebanon on Monday killed at least 558 people, in the deadliest day of violence since Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war, sending people fleeing for their lives.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said Tuesday that the number of displaced in Lebanon was "now probably... approaching half a million".

Source: AFP