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After weeks of Israeli-Hezbollah fighting, waves of people from southern Lebanon holding white flags continued to travel toward Beirut as major relief and church agencies warned that the country faces a humanitarian disaster because of severe difficulties in providing assistance.

“The humanitarian situation is catastrophic,” said Aline Papazian of the Middle East Council of Churches, a member of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International. “We have almost 1 million people living as refugees in makeshift buildings, such as churches, parks or schools.”

The executive director of the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund has resigned her post after prominent members of the fund’s religious advisory committee quit and harshly criticized the manner in which the fund made grants to houses of worship.

Fund cochairs Don Evans and Alexis Herman announced July 14 that Mary Ann Wyrsch would be replaced by Constance Berry Newman, an executive with a Washington lobbying group, while acknowledging the concerns stated by former committee cochairs, Bishop T. D. Jakes of Dallas and William H. Gray III, a pastor in Philadelphia.