In early October, Shoshan Hassan Mazraani, the head emergency department nurse at the Marjayoun hospital in southern Lebanon, was drinking coffee at work when she saw an Israeli strike hit without warning “directly on the ambulances” outside. The attack killed seven paramedics and wounded five others. The same day, Israeli strikes repeatedly hit Salah Ghandour Hospital in the nearby town of Bint Jbeil. In that assault, nine hospital workers were injured, several critically.
“The hospital was struck three times,” the facility’s director, a physician named Moanes Kalakish said later. “One shell struck the on-call room and two shells struck the paramedics’ waiting room, [both] inside the hospital.”
In the weeks since, Israeli attacks have struck medical systems across Lebanon, hitting hospitals, ambulances, and clinics as part of an aerial assault and invasion that has now killed more than 3,000 people, including over 150 health care and rescue workers, in the past twelve months.
Two reports issued recently, one from Human Rights Watch (HRW) and another from CNN, detail the pattern of attacks on the Lebanese health care system. HRW, in its report, concluded that the Israeli strikes on the Marjayoun and Salah Ghandour hospitals, along with another separate strike on a rescue center in Beirut, all constitute likely war crimes. In total, HRW reported that Israeli attacks across Lebanon have hit a total of 158 ambulances and fifty-five hospitals. In a separate analysis, CNN found that in just the first month of the escalating offensive in Lebanon, Israeli strikes hit thirty-four hospitals and 107 ambulances, killing 111 emergency medical technicians.
The Israeli assault on health care in Lebanon is increasingly widespread, affecting…
Auteur: Jake Sonnenberg
