BEIRUT (Lebanon) (AFP) – As Israeli strikes devastate Lebanon, calls to safeguard the country's only airport -- a lifeline for aid and travel located precariously close to Hezbollah's southern Beirut stronghold -- have gained urgency.
Since Israel intensified its air campaign against Hezbollah last month, Beirut's airport has received a flurry of aid shipments from various countries, most recently France and Qatar.
It has also served as a major evacuation hub for foreign nationals and Lebanese citizens fleeing Israel's deadly campaign, despite most airlines suspending services over security concerns as strikes land nearby.
The airport was previously targeted in 2006, during Israel's last war with Hezbollah, prompting concern over a repeat as Israel threatened to unleash destruction on Lebanon similar to Gaza, where it has been fighting a devastating year-long war.
UN and Arab officials have called for the protection of the facility, warning that an attack would disrupt the critical flow of international assistance.
The airport is essentially "the only passage for humanitarian aid", said Qatar's Minister of State for International Cooperation Lolwah Al-Khater who flew in on Tuesday as black plumes billowed into the skyline.
It should be safeguarded as "an absolute necessity", she said, a day after Israel's closest ally the United States warned Israel not to bomb the facility or roads leading to it.
'RELIES ON IMPORTS'
On Tuesday, vehicles revved beneath the racket of idling military aircraft engines on the ramp at the Beirut airport as crews unloaded two aid planes.
The humanitarian supplies, bearing the French flag or stamped with "Qatar Aid", contained medicine, medical equipment and tents.
The airport should be protected and treated as "a humanitarian corridor", Al-Khater told reporters during a Beirut news conference as she announced a humanitarian "air bridge" for Lebanon from Qatar.
Lebanon's transport minister Ali Hamieh told AFP Beirut has received "assurances" that Israel will not target the airport, but added "there is a big difference between assurances and guarantees".
He spoke days after the Israeli army said it struck Hezbollah targets near the Masnaa border crossing, damaging the main road between Lebanon and Syria and preventing vehicles from getting through.
"It's important that the airport remains open. It's absolutely critical the ports remain open. And it's also critical that the overland corridors into Lebanon remain open," said Lebanon director of the World Food Programme (WFP) Matthew Hollingworth.
"This is a country that relies on imports to cover most, if not all, of its needs, in terms of fuel, in terms of food," he told a briefing.
Jeremy Laurence, spokesman for the UN Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, stressed the "paramount importance of international humanitarian law", saying "all parties must respect not only civilians but civilian objects".
More than 1,150 people have been killed since Israel ramped up air strikes on Lebanon on September 23, according to official figures.
The fighting has forced more than one million people to flee their homes, with many heading to Beirut, which is now overwhelmed.