Beirut- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will demand that Israel pay Lebanon $1 billion in compensation for damages caused during Israel's 2006 war against Hezbollah , according to reports by 2 Israeli newspapers (Israel national news and Haaretz ) that quoted Lebanese media reports.
According to the report, the sum which is based on World Bank appraisals, is aimed at covering the environmental and material damages caused by the Second Lebanon War.
The fundamental part of the compensation demanded is for the damage caused to the Lebanese coast due to an oil spill following an Israeli bombing of a southern Beirut power plant in Jiyeh , which the Lebanese said had caused "an ecological disaster," and caused some 110,000 oil barrels to leak into the Mediterranean Sea.
According to the report, Ban plans to submit a report to the United Nations General Assembly at the end of the month, stating that the damage Israel caused to the oil reservoir polluted Lebanon's coast, and that the pollution spread to neighboring countries, especially Syria, Cyprus , Greece and Turkey..
What made matters worse was the Israeli naval blockade and its military operations that had made any cleanup impossible.
“The immediate impact can be severe but we have not been able to do an immediate assessment,” said U.N. Environment Program executive director Achim Steiner in Geneva following the attack on the Jiyeh power plant . “But the longer the spill is left untreated, the harder it will be to clean up.”
Photo: Crude oil resulting from an Israeli attack on the Jiyeh power plant during the 2006 Israeli war on Hezbollah , covers a tourist beach in Beirut, Lebanon. During this war the Lebanese infrastructure was devastated by Israeli bombardment , over 1200 Lebanese were killed and over 110, 000 housing units were destroyed . UN estimated that the total cost to Lebanon was in excess of $15.00 billion as a result of the Israeli bombardment
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