Bad Weather Delays Red Cross Visit to Exiled Palestinians
Bad weather forced Red Cross officials to postpone until today their plan to visit 415 Palestinian deportees stranded in southern Lebanon, a U.N. spokesman said Friday.
In Lebanon, winter storms uprooted tents sheltering the deportees, dumped 10 inches of snow on their camp and cut off smuggling routes they had used to bring supplies. Physicians at the camp said some of the deportees were suffering lung and chest infections because of the freezing cold.
Israel’s deportation of the men from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip last month has led to worldwide censure and jeopardized the recessed Mideast peace talks.
The deportees have been trapped since Dec. 17 in a no-man’s-land on the edge of an Israeli-occupied sector of southern Lebanon. Lebanon has refused to accept the men.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
