SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Representatives of Israel and Lebanon are holding talks in Washington today to try to end the war in Southern Lebanon. Despite a ceasefire, Israeli forces occupying Southern Lebanon are still clashing with the Iranian-based militia, Hezbollah. This latest round of talks comes as the U.N. says nearly a quarter of Lebanon's population faces severe food insecurity. The Lebanese government says Israeli attacks have destroyed more than 20% of farmland in the south of the country. NPR's Jane Arraf and Jawad Rizkallah have more.
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JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: At a nonprofit kitchen, Sirena, the chief cook, is making a meal for 2,000. She sautes slivered almonds and margarine in a huge aluminum pot outside at the nonprofit organization Ahla Fawda. It's a pasta dish with yogurt, garlic and dried mint.
SIRENA: I just added the shell pasta into the hot water.
ARRAF: Lebanese comfort food to be served to displaced families in shelters.
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ARRAF: Sirena, who's 25, had her own home destroyed by Israel. She asks that NPR not use her full name for fear of Israeli retaliation. This is the second war with Israel in two years Lebanon has faced.
SIRENA: It's way worse than last time because there's less food.
ARRAF: Donations are down. And because of the war in Iran and the war here, food prices are up. Sirena points to stacked black, plastic bins. Each holds about 22 pounds of produce.
SIRENA: A basket of cucumbers and a basket of tomatoes is about $190.
ARRAF: How much did it used to be?
SIRENA: A little under half that.
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ARRAF: Higher fuel and shipping costs because of the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz have had a big impact. Around the world, more people are going hungry. Bob Kitchen, emergency director of the International Rescue Committee, the IRC, is visiting Lebanon from the U.S. He says aid groups are trying to carve out a humanitarian corridor in the Strait of Hormuz.
BOB KITCHEN: What it would look like would be ships being designated humanitarian vessels and being given permission by both sides of the conflict - by the Iranians and by the United States - and they would be given safe passage.
ARRAF: He says cuts by the U.S. and other countries have led to budgets of major aid organizations being slashed in half in the last six months, even as need rises. Many Lebanese were already hard hit.
KITCHEN: It's an affordability issue that people, because they've been dislocated from their fields, they've been dislocated from their jobs, they couldn't afford much even before the conflict. They don't have the resources to be able to afford to feed their families.
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ARRAF: At one of the IRC projects in the Beqaa Valley, Rania Haroub says this is what parents tell her.
RANIA HAROUB: They need clothes. They need food because only - they are served one meal per day.
ARRAF: Because there's a huge increase in trauma, the IRC is doing psychosocial support for displaced families. Here, children are gathered around a small table with pencil crayons. A shy, 5-year-old girl has drawn herself as a stick figure floating outside a house. Aya Mohammad from the IRC explains.
AYA MOHAMMAD: And now, they are outside, so they are drawing themselves outside the home. Some of them lost their houses, and it's not the first experience when they lose their houses.
ARRAF: Some have also lost friends and relatives and the ability to go to school. Their parents have lost the means to take care of their families. All of this in a country that has relied heavily on aid, now with much less of it to go around. Jane Arraf, NPR News in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon.
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