© UNICEF | A street is littered with debris from buildings severely damaged by recent hostilities close to a hospital in Tebnine, southern Lebanon.(file)
Lebanon hospital strikes impact most vulnerable patients, warns WHO
The UN health agency in Lebanon is verifying reports of strikes on a hospital in the southern city of Tyre on Monday, amid a concerning rise in attacks on healthcare in the country.
According to initial information from the Lebanese authorities, at least 86 people, including healthcare workers, have been injured in the strikes on Jabal Amel Hospital.
The attacks “caused significant damage…to the emergency department and intensive care unit”, said World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Lebanon, Dr Abdinasir Abubakar.
Speaking from Beirut on Tuesday, Dr Abubakar explained that Jabal Amel is one of the few hospitals currently operating in the south.
Deadly pattern
In just three months, WHO has verified almost 190 attacks on healthcare, which have killed 128 healthcare workers and injured 332 others. The past week alone has seen 11 attacks.
“These attacks kill and maim, they also deprive people of the health services they need,” the WHO representative said.
Healthcare in Tyre district has suffered the worst impacts of hostilities between Hezbollah fighters and Israel in the last few days; two out of three hospitals, Jabal Amel and Hiram – which was attacked last Sunday – are damaged, while the third hospital is “overwhelmed as it’s dealing with the influx of increased numbers of injured patients”, Dr Abubakar said.
Access to essential services is “critically constrained,” he insisted, especially in southern Lebanon, where patients face up to 48-hour delays to reach the nearest referral facilities.
A matter of life and death
“Six hospitals have not yet resumed maternity delivery services and are currently providing only emergency room care,” Dr Abubakar stressed. “For pregnant women and newborns, delays in care can mean the difference between life and death.”
The WHO representative also flagged the challenging health situation in shelters, hosting some 130,000 people who have fled the fighting. Displacement is on the rise following the most recent Israeli evacuation orders. The escalating violence and warnings of Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, home to hundreds of thousands of civilians, prompted a Security Council meeting on Monday.
The UN health agency has been monitoring infectious diseases within shelters and host communities, reporting “an increased trend of acute watery diarrhoea”.
“We are in the summer season and now the risk of cholera may be increasing,” Dr Abubakar warned.
With humanitarian needs outpacing the response, the WHO representative insisted on the need to sustain funding for essential health services.
“We also need the attacks on healthcare to stop, and we need active protection for healthcare,” he said, reiterating calls for a sustained ceasefire and durable peace.
Since the start of the current escalation in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah fighters on 2 March, more than almost 3,400 people have been killed in Lebanon and nearly 10,400 people have been injured, most of them civilians.
“These have been among the deadliest months for Lebanon since the start of the conflict in October 2023,” Dr Abubakar insisted.
A US-brokered ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel took effect on 17 April but has never been fully observed by either side. It was nominally extended twice, most recently on 16 May for a 45-day period.