Israel Killed 28 Lebanese Medical Workers in 24 Hours, 73 Since War's Start: WHO
"I'm afraid first about my safety and about my family's safety because there's no safe place in Lebanon now," said one physician.
The head of the United Nations World Health Organization said Thursday that Israeli forces killed 28 healthcare workers in Lebanon over the previous 24 hours, and that 73 medical personnel are among the nearly 2,000 Lebanese killed during Israel's bombing and invasion of its northern neighbor.
"In southern Lebanon, 37 health facilities have been closed, while in Beirut, three hospitals have been forced to fully evacuate staff and patients, and another two were partially evacuated," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference in Geneva. "And yet healthcare continues to come under attack. In Lebanon alone, 28 health workers have been killed in the last 24 hours."
Tedros said the WHO "calls on urgent facilitation of flights to deliver health supplies to Lebanon," adding, "Lives depend on it!"
Lebanese Health Minister Firas Al-Abiad said separately Thursday that more than 40 paramedics and firefighters have been killed by Israeli forces over the previous three days.
Dr. Abdinasir Abubakar, the acting WHO representative in Lebanon, said that "most of those healthcare workers killed in the last 24 hours, most of them—actually, all of them—were on duty."
"Some of them were in the ambulances, some of them were in the health facilities," Abubakar added. "They were on duty trying to help civilians who have been wounded in the conflict."
Dr. Fathalla Fattouh, the head cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon at Rafik Hariri University Hospital (RHUH) in Jnah, just outside Beirut, described the chaos he witnessed firsthand, including "a surge of nearly identical injuries—amputations, eye trauma, and shattered hip and femur bones—straining the hospital's capacity to a near-breaking point."
"We were forced to make difficult decisions," he added. "I believe that we did our best relying on available capacities, but with the escalation of events we need to plan for the worst."
Sara, a surgeon at the hospital, said that "there are only two hospitals in Lebanon prepared to treat burn patients, and once they were at capacity, we were left with nowhere to send the patients we received."
"It was a feeling of helplessness that we had never experienced before," she added.
Some doctors admitted fearing for their lives.
"It's hard to work in fear," Dr. Mohammad Taoube, who heads the emergency room at an undisclosed hospital in southern Lebanon, toldSky News on Wednesday. "I'm afraid first about my safety and about my family's safety because there's no safe place in Lebanon now."
According to figures provided by the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, Israeli forces have killed 1,974 people in Lebanon—including at least 127 children—while wounding 9,384 others in recent weeks.
At least one American has been killed by Israeli bombing of Lebanon this week. Hajj Kamel Ahmad Jawad, 56, of Dearborn, Michigan was killed Tuesday while in Nabatieth in southern Lebanon caring for his sick mother and volunteering to help elderly, disabled, and injured patients at a local hospital.
The Nabatieth area has come under heavy Israeli bombardment. Local journalists said the city's main hospital "came under direct Israeli fire" on Friday and that two nurses were killed.
Lebanese officials said Friday that more than 1.2 million people have been forcibly displaced amid Israel's recent bombing and invasion of their country. The Israeli campaign comes amid attacks by the political and paramilitary group Hezbollah, whose rockets and other projectiles have killed or wounded scores of Israelis and forced tens of thousands from their homes.
Residents of southern Lebanon described the terror of coming under Israeli bombardment and having to flee for their lives. One woman, Fatima, and her 14-year-old daughter Zeinab said they were in their home preparing for a school exam when the shelling started.
"My mother told us to pack our things quickly, and we left in a rush," Zeinab told the U.N. Children's Fund on Thursday. "My siblings were crying. The journey was terrifying."
"The shelling was all around us, and the sound of explosions echoed everywhere," she said while crying. "We miss home dearly and yearn to return."
Tedros noted that since last October, when Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israel in solidarity with Gaza after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel, over 1 million Lebanese have been displaced, with many seeking refuge in neighboring Syria.
He also said that "since the 7th of October last year, more than 1,500 people have been killed in Israel, almost 42,000 in Gaza, and more than 700 in the West Bank."
"In addition," Tedros added, "more than 10,000 people are missing in Gaza, and 1.9 million people are displaced, while 101 hostages taken from Israel remain in Gaza."
Hundreds of Palestinians working in the health sector have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces, who have deliberately targeted medical workers. Israeli troops have also allegedly tortured doctors and other medical workers after kidnapping them from the coastal enclave.
Tedros on Thursday stressed the need for "deescalation of the conflict; for healthcare to be protected and not attacked; for access routes to be secured and supplies delivered; and for a cease-fire, a political solution, and peace."
"The best medicine," he said, "is peace."
