UN shifts from aid work to rebuilding in Lebanon

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 29 (Reuters) The United Nations declared an end on Thursday to the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon caused by the Israeli-Hizbollah war and said it planned to shift its resources to rebuilding the war-shattered area.

UN aid teams will officially pull out of Lebanon on Oct. 24, a little more than two months after a UN-brokered truce ended the month-long conflict between Lebanon's Hizbollah and Israel, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

The world body's new focus will be to provide money and support to the Lebanese government in the early stages of recovery, including the critical reconstruction of water storage tanks, water lines and pumping stations.

The lead agency for the new campaign will be the UN Development Program, the UN office said.

Teams of environmental experts will visit the country later this month to monitor hazards facing residents returning to the region, including waste rubble, ground water contamination, asbestos and medical and industrial waste.

Some 40,000 cluster bombs and other unexploded shells have been cleared from 592 sites identified by UN mine removal teams, it said yesterday.

Still, about 200,000 people in southern Lebanon remain unable to return to their homes due to the level of destruction and cluster bombs littering their towns, it said.

UN agencies said this week that up to a million unexploded cluster bomblets dropped by Israel had become the biggest threat to civilians in South Lebanon, where they sit silently in streets, homes and orchards.

Cluster bombs burst into bomblets and spread out near the ground.

While some aim to destroy tanks, others are designed to kill or maim people over a wide area.

More than 350 Lebanese Army personnel and 200 contractors and UN troops are still working to rid the region of cluster bombs, a process UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland previously estimated could take between a year and 15 months.

Around 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed in the war that began July 12 when Hizbollah grabbed two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.

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