Lebanon’s Crisis-Battered Healthcare System Now Prepares for a Wider War with Israel, Minister Says

 Lebanese caretaker Health Minister Firass Abiad, attends an interview with Reuters in Beirut, Lebanon August 7, 2024. (Reuters)
Lebanese caretaker Health Minister Firass Abiad, attends an interview with Reuters in Beirut, Lebanon August 7, 2024. (Reuters)
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Lebanon’s Crisis-Battered Healthcare System Now Prepares for a Wider War with Israel, Minister Says

 Lebanese caretaker Health Minister Firass Abiad, attends an interview with Reuters in Beirut, Lebanon August 7, 2024. (Reuters)
Lebanese caretaker Health Minister Firass Abiad, attends an interview with Reuters in Beirut, Lebanon August 7, 2024. (Reuters)

Lebanon’s crisis-battered healthcare system is now preparing for the possibility of a devastating wider conflict with Israel, the country’s health minister told The Associated Press in an interview Monday.

Israel's military and Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group have traded strikes since the current war in Gaza began, but tensions have escalated since an Israeli strike in a Beirut suburb killed a top Hezbollah commander last month. Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate.

Lebanon’s caretaker government, amid diplomatic maneuvering for de-escalation, is trying to prepare for the worst with a tattered budget, a deeply divided parliament and no president.

"The Lebanese health system had to adjust to multiple crises," caretaker Health Minister Firass Abiad said. Healthcare facilities cut costs by keeping inventory at a minimum, leaving little backup for emergencies, he said. Now inventory has been built up to four months' worth of critical supplies.

"We hope that all the efforts we are doing for preparing for this emergency go to waste" and a wider war is averted, Abiad said. "The best thing that we want is for all of this to turn out to be unnecessary."

Inside Gaza, the health system has been decimated. Abiad said Lebanese health authorities take the possibility of hospitals being targeted in a wider conflict "very seriously."

Already, he said, almost two dozen paramedics and healthcare workers in southern Lebanon have been killed in Israeli strikes. They include paramedics from medical groups affiliated with Hezbollah and allied groups that have filled the gaps in areas with limited state services.

Israeli strikes have hit deeper into Lebanon in recent weeks, and sonic booms from military jets rattle Beirut. Much of the border region is in rubble.

The Mediterranean country’s health sector was once renowned as one of the best in the region. But Lebanon has faced compounding crises since 2019, including a fiscal one that followed decades of corruption and mismanagement. Other challenges include the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Beirut Port explosion that damaged or destroyed key healthcare infrastructure and dwindling international aid to help Lebanon host more than 1 million Syrian refugees.

Lebanese hospitals in 2021 were at breaking point, barely able to keep the lights on and short on medicines.

Abiad said the health sector has shown resilience before, and he hopes it will again.

"During the (port) blast, the system was able to absorb an excess of 6,000 casualties in a matter of 12 hours," he said. "There is, I would say, a determination within our healthcare system to provide the needed care to all the people who require it."

But resilience might not be enough for the troubled country and its 6 million people. The financial crisis has left government agencies beholden to humanitarian organizations for cash injections and supplies.

Last week, the health ministry received 32 tons of emergency medical aid from the World Health Organization. But UN agencies and other humanitarian groups have had to reallocate funds from existing work to provide aid to about 100,00 people who have fled southern Lebanon since the current war in Gaza began.

Abiad said some issues are out of the ministry’s control, including securing fuel for electricity and petrol for ambulances, as well as supporting the almost 800,000 UN-registered Syrian refugees in the country.

Healthcare resources are not sufficient for refugees in particular, Abiad said: "The international community really has to pull its weight and chip in with this particular issue."



Amnesty International Denounces Crackdown on Political Opponents in Libya

Fighters from the Libyan National Army (LNA) stand guard next to Sidra oil port in Ras Lanuf. (Reuters file)
Fighters from the Libyan National Army (LNA) stand guard next to Sidra oil port in Ras Lanuf. (Reuters file)
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Amnesty International Denounces Crackdown on Political Opponents in Libya

Fighters from the Libyan National Army (LNA) stand guard next to Sidra oil port in Ras Lanuf. (Reuters file)
Fighters from the Libyan National Army (LNA) stand guard next to Sidra oil port in Ras Lanuf. (Reuters file)

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Libya’s eastern-based forces of enabling a crackdown on dissidents and of entrenched impunity for deaths in custody and other serious human rights abuses, according to AFP.

Since the 2011 overthrow of ruler Moammar al-Gaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising, the energy-rich North African country has been wracked by unrest.

It is split between a Tripoli-based government, headed by Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east backed by Khalifa Haftar, whose Libyan National Army (LNA) controls the east and much of the south.

“Since January 2024, heavily armed Internal Security Agency (ISA) agents have arrested without a warrant dozens of people, including women and men in their 70s, from their homes, streets or other public places in areas of eastern and southern Libya,” Amnesty said.

Based on interviews with former detainees, the families of detainees, as well as lawyers, human rights defenders and political activists, the rights group said the detainees were then transferred to ISA-controlled facilities, where they remained arbitrarily detained for months without being allowed to contact their families or lawyers; some were subjected to enforced disappearances for periods reaching 10 months.

It noted that none were brought before civilian judicial authorities, allowed to challenge the legality of their detention, or were formally charged with any offences.

“Two people died in custody in suspicious circumstances in April and July while in ISA-controlled detention centers in Benghazi and Ajdabiya,” Amnesty said, adding that no independent and impartial criminal investigations have been carried out into their deaths and no one has been held accountable.

“The spike in arbitrary detentions and deaths in custody in recent months highlights how the existing culture of impunity has empowered armed groups to violate detainees’ right to life without fearing any consequences,” said Bassam Al Kantar, Amnesty International’s Libya Researcher.

“These deaths in custody add to the catalogue of horrors committed by the ISA against those who dare to express views critical of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces,” he added.

Amnesty called on the GNU and LAAF, as the de facto authorities in eastern and southern Libya, to ensure the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression.

“The LAAF must also suspend from positions of power ISA commanders and members reasonably suspected of crimes under international law and serious human rights violations, pending independent and impartial criminal investigations, including into the causes and circumstances of the deaths in custody, and, where sufficient evidence exists, prosecute them in fair proceedings in front of civilian courts,” it added.