France sends first humanitarian aid to Lebanon
21/7/2006 9:58
A French cargo-plane carrying humanitarian aid for Lebanon took off from
Paris Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle airport yesterday morning.
Some 50
emergency doctors and Red Cross staff were aboard the Boeing 747-300, which also
carried medicines, surgical equipment, water-purification units, food and field
generators in the first dispatch of aid to the Arab nation.
The plane will
land at Larnaca, Cyprus, where the aid materials will be taken to Lebanon by
boat and put at the disposal of the Lebanese government.
A second plane is
due to leave later Thursday.
Violence between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah
erupted on July12 after Hezbollah militia kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and
killed eight others during an across-border attack.
Thousands of foreigners
are fleeing Lebanon, most of them by sea and land, while Israel is intensifying
its military operation in Lebanon.
French President Jacques Chirac on
Wednesday called for the opening of "humanitarian corridors" in Lebanon to
evacuate refugees.
Xinhua
|
