A leading Scottish humanitarian charity working in the Middle East has admitted they are concerned that the scale of the conflict is leading people to become immune to what they are seeing.

Images from Gaza have been shared widely on social media for almost a year, while recently it has been footage from Lebanon that has emerged.

Rockets that were fired towards Israel were also caught on camera as the death toll continues to rise.

SCIAF have been working in the area with their Gaza appeal running since last October and they recently announced that it was being extended to help the people of Lebanon too.

The charity has been working with Caritas Lebanon as their local partner to provide hot meals and anything else that is needed for people who have been displaced by the crisis.

Caritas staff have been handing out food and drinkCaritas staff have been handing out food and drink (Image: Caritas Lebanon)

Up until the end of September, Caritas had assisted over 24,000 Internally Displaced Persons, and provided more than 79,000 hot meals as well as other support including clothes, blankets, mattresses food kits, water, and health care services with more to come.

But Mark Adams, who works for the charity, admits that the situation is catastrophic as he reiterated their calls for an immediate ceasefire.

He said: “SCIAF has been calling on the UK government and the Scottish government to support as much as it can a ceasefire, cessation of hostilities, and making sure that all actors abide by international humanitarian law and human rights law by any means that they can, any reasonable means.

“So yes, we would like to see the government go further and be stronger on this. I mean, the situation is catastrophic. And as we said, we're almost a year now. And it's appalling. I think we've all run out of words to describe how bad it is.

“In the last 11 months, we keep thinking it can't get worse, and it does. The people of Gaza have been repeatedly displaced.

“They are utterly destitute. They are in huge need of assistance. It's an incredibly difficult operating environment.

“If there was a ceasefire then also the hostages could be released and returned. We are trying to fulfil our humanitarian mandate. We do not have a side in this.

“We believe in and promote the human rights of all, human dignity of all. And we would like to see a situation where there is a process that leads to a lasting and just peace in the region.”

The situation in Lebanon has made things even more difficult and Mr Adams admits that there is no way that everyone can be helped, and it means more needs done by the government as he urged people to help with their fund.

He wants people to put their political views to one side and focus on people needing help because there isn’t much that can be done without more funds.

(Image: Caritas Lebanon)

He continued: “There are very strong opinions related to this conflict. Some people feel that has reduced the amount of support there is available for the people affected by this.

“I think it's important that we do try to put those affected front and centre. The people of Lebanon, we're talking about, hundreds of people killed, thousands injured, perhaps 120,000 people displaced, maybe more. There are different estimates. Huge numbers of people are being affected by this crisis.

“Most emergencies are underfunded we are a humanitarian organisation, and we try to support people where we can, and in this case, we have worked for a long time with Caritas Lebanon, we've had a long existing relationship, and it makes sense for us to seek for additional funds to support them to do that.

“We can only assist as much as we have funding ourselves, but we feel it's the right thing to do at the moment to try and assist people in Lebanon.

“We are calling for much stronger, we would like to see much stronger humanitarian assistance for those people. But humanitarian assistance is a sticky plaster.

“There are many aspects for us, for SCIAF. I think the biggest challenge is that there are so many crises going on around the world.

“And people in the UK themselves feel there are crises here that so it's difficult to be generous, but there are so many people, so many crises around the world. So a big challenge for us is simply mobilising support for our partners to be able to assist people affected by humanitarian crises.

“Because our partners are embedded in this, the staff and the volunteers at Caritas Lebanon are part of this crisis as well.

“Two members of staff have been killed in Gaza, along with, as far as I'm aware, at least 18 members of their families. They are at risk. They get hurt.

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“Some of them have died. They are deeply traumatised. I mean, it's hard to imagine what it's like to have an experience like that, and then go out and assist people.

“But that is what many of the staff and the volunteers do. So that's a huge challenge that they are as often as at risk. They wouldn't, as anyone else, they're not outsiders to this.

“But then over 250 humanitarian aid workers have died in Gaza. The protection of humanitarian assistance staff is very tenuous. So managing security, trying to ensure that people are safe while meaningfully assisting others is very, it's a huge challenge.

“So I think the financing, safety and security, and more broadly, just the scale of these needs and the operating environment in which organisations are working, these are huge challenges."

To donate to SCIAF’s Holy Land appeal, please visit www.sciaf.org.uk/holyland