Lebanon’s hospitals buckle amid Israel’s harsh offensive

WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Sandbags have been stacked at the doors of St. Therese Hospital to minimize damage from an anticipated new wave of airstrikes, near Beirut, on Saturday. DIEGO IBARRA SANCHEZ — THE NEW YORK TIMES

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By Euan Ward

The New York Times

BEIRUT >> It was 12:54 a.m., and Elie Hachem had not slept in days when the chief nurse at his Beirut hospital called.

The Israeli military had announced that it would begin striking “Hezbollah facilities” in the area, and had ordered the hospital to evacuate. Dozens of staff members and patients were still inside, among them premature babies hooked up to incubators, Hachem said.

“We only had 20 minutes,” he said, describing the events this month at St. Therese Hospital, where he is the director, on the outskirts of Beirut. “Maybe less.”

The airstrike landed just 80 yards from the hospital and caused heavy damage, collapsing ceilings and flooding parts of the health facility, though no one was harmed, Hachem said.

The next day, fearing their luck would run out, Hachem ordered the Christian hospital shut down. “The staff are traumatized,” he said.

St. Therese is near Dahiya, a densely packed civilian area adjoining Beirut where Hezbollah holds sway and which has been pounded by Israeli airstrikes. It is one of at least nine hospitals in Lebanon that are now shuttered or only partly functional, according to the World Health Organization.

The United Nations said some hospitals had shut down after they were damaged in attacks. Others have been abandoned after staff members fled, fearing for their safety. The ones that remain operational say they are quickly running out of beds as patients evacuated from other facilities are brought in.

Last month, Israel mounted a major offensive in Lebanon, targeting the leaders of Hezbollah, the Shiite militant and political group, and destroying much of its arsenal. The bombing has forced nearly 1 million people to leave their homes.

Hezbollah began launching rockets at Israeli positions in support of the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023. The Lebanese group and the Israeli military traded blows back and forth over the past year, displacing communities on both sides of the border.

U.N. officials say Israel’s large-scale airstrikes are “indiscriminate,” and the escalating attacks have overwhelmed Lebanon’s beleaguered health system. More than 2,300 people have been killed and over 10,000 injured in Lebanon since the conflict began a year ago, with a vast majority of the casualties in the last three weeks, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

Since the conflict with Hezbollah intensified three weeks ago, the WHO says it has recorded 16 attacks on Lebanon’s health sector in which 65 workers were killed.