World Bank redirects $250 million of Lebanon aid

The World Bank on Thursday announced the redirection of $250 million to emergency aid for Lebanon from funds that were originally meant to promote renewable energy in the country.

“The World Bank is activating emergency response plans to be able to repurpose resources in the portfolio to respond to the urgent needs of people in Lebanon,” said a statement from the US-based multilateral institution.

Since September 23, more than 1,000 people have been killed in an Israeli air-and-ground campaign on Lebanon that has targeted armed group Hezbollah in the south and east of the country, with strikes expanding to include the capital Beirut.

Thousands have been displaced since the bombing began, and the funds would be used to provide aid to those populations, the World Bank said.

“This would include emergency support to displaced people that could be deployed through a digital platform the World Bank helped put in place during the Covid epidemic,” the statement said.

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Hezbollah has engaged in cross-border exchanges of fire with Israel since October last year when its Palestinian ally Hamas launched an unprecedented attack that sparked Israel’s war in Gaza.

The World Bank program from which the funds are being diverted was initially intended to reinforce Lebanon’s electricity system by making it more self-sufficient and developing renewable energy systems.

Lebanon, already facing difficult economic conditions and sky-high inflation before the latest hostilities, has lost more than 40 percent of its GDP since 2018, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said in a report last week.