Desperate Deja Vu for Foreign War Doctors in Lebanon

Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert in Gaza in 2014 - AFP
Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert in Gaza in 2014 - AFP
TT

Desperate Deja Vu for Foreign War Doctors in Lebanon

Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert in Gaza in 2014 - AFP
Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert in Gaza in 2014 - AFP

In a south Lebanon hospital, Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert peered out of the window after bombardment near the Israeli border, four decades after he first worked in the country.

"It's a horrible experience," he said in a video call from the southern town of Nabatiyeh.

"It's been 42 years and nothing has changed," said Gilbert, who first saw war treating patients during the 1982 Israeli invasion and siege of Beirut.

The anaesthetist and emergency medicine specialist said he had seen just a few cases since arriving on Tuesday.

"Most of the cases have been south of us and they have not been able to evacuate them because the attacks have been so vicious," AFP quoted Gilbert saying.

Israel has increased its airstrikes against in Lebanon since September 23, pounding the south of the country and later staging what it called "limited operations" across the border.

On Thursday the Israeli army warned residents to leave Nabatiyeh.

The escalation has killed more than 1,100 people and wounded at least another 3,600, and pushed upwards of a million people to flee their homes, according to government figures.

Official media have reported some Israeli strikes killing entire families, and AFP has spoken to two people who lost 17 relatives and 10 family members respectively.

- Gaza on 'repeat' -

Israel's military "can do whatever they want to healthcare, to ambulances, to churches, to mosques, to universities, as they've been doing in Gaza," said Gilbert, who has repeatedly volunteered in the Palestinian territory during past conflicts.

"And now we see the same repeat itself in Lebanon in 2024."

A hospital in the town of Bint Jbeil closer to the border on Saturday said it was hit by heavy overnight Israeli strikes, wounding nine medical and nursing staff, most seriously.

At least four hospitals said they had suspended work amid ongoing Israeli bombardment on Friday.

On Thursday, Lebanon's health minister said more than 40 paramedics and firefighters had been killed by Israeli fire in three days.

UN official Imran Riza on X on Saturday spoke of "an alarming increase in attacks against healthcare in Lebanon".

Britain said reports that Israeli strikes had hit "health facilities and support personnel" in Lebanon were "deeply disturbing".

Israel has claimed Hezbollah uses ambulances for "terrorist purposes".

- 'Kids with blast injuries' -

In the capital Beirut, British-Palestinian doctor Ghassan Abu-Sittah said he also saw parallels with the conflict in Gaza.

Abu-Sittah has tirelessly campaigned for "justice" since spending weeks in the besieged Palestinian territory treating the wounded at the start of the war.

Now in Lebanon, the plastic and reconstructive surgeon described seeing "kids, families whose houses have been targeted" with blast injuries in the past few weeks.

There were "kids with blast injuries to the face, to the torso, amputated limbs," he said outside the American University of Beirut's Medical Center.

Abu-Sittah estimated that more than a quarter of the wounded he had seen in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon were minors.

"I have a girl upstairs who is 13, who had a blast injury to the face, needed reconstruction of her jaw, will need several surgeries," he said.

"Children who are injured in war need between eight and 12 surgeries by the time they're adult age."

According to the UN children's agency UNICEF, 690 children in Lebanon have been wounded in recent weeks.

It said doctors had reported most suffered from "concussions and traumatic brain injuries from the impact of blasts, shrapnel wounds and limb injuries".

"It's just so reminiscent of what was happening in Gaza," said Abu-Sittah.

"The heartbreaking thing is that this could all have been stopped if they stopped the war in Gaza," he added.



The War in Gaza Long Felt Personal for Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon. Now They’re Living It

 Smoke and flames rise amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Tyre, southern Lebanon October 5, 2024. (Reuters)
Smoke and flames rise amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Tyre, southern Lebanon October 5, 2024. (Reuters)
TT

The War in Gaza Long Felt Personal for Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon. Now They’re Living It

 Smoke and flames rise amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Tyre, southern Lebanon October 5, 2024. (Reuters)
Smoke and flames rise amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Tyre, southern Lebanon October 5, 2024. (Reuters)

The war in Gaza was always personal for many Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

Many live in camps set up after 1948, when their parents or grandparents fled their homes in land that became Israel, and they have followed a year's worth of news of destruction and displacement in Gaza with dismay.

While Israeli air strikes in Lebanon have killed a few figures from Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, the camps that house many of the country's approximately 200,000 refugees felt relatively safe for the general population.

That has changed.

Tens of thousands of refugees have fled as Israel has launched an offensive in Lebanon against Hezbollah amid an ongoing escalation in the war in the Middle East. For many, it feels as if they are living the horrors they witnessed on their screens.

Terror on a small screen becomes personal reality Manal Sharari, from the Rashidiyeh refugee camp near the southern coastal city of Tyre, used to try to shield her three young daughters from images of children wounded and killed in the war in Gaza even as she followed the news "minute by minute."

In recent weeks, she couldn't shield them from the sounds of bombs dropping nearby.

"They were afraid and would get anxious every time they heard the sound of a strike," Sharari said.

Four days ago, the Israeli military issued a warning to residents of the camp to evacuate as it launched a ground incursion into southern Lebanon — similar to the series of evacuation orders that have sent residents of Gaza fleeing back and forth across the enclave for months.

Sharari and her family also fled. They are now staying in a vocational training center-turned-displacement shelter run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, in the town of Sebline, 55 km (34 mi) to the north. Some 1,400 people are staying there.

Mariam Moussa, from the Burj Shamali camp, also near Tyre, fled with her extended family about a week earlier when strikes began falling on the outskirts of the camp.

Before that, she said, "we would see the scenes in Gaza and what was happening there, the destruction, the children and families. And in the end, we had to flee our houses, same as them."

The world is bracing for more refugees

Israeli officials have said the ground offensive in Lebanon and the week of heavy bombardment that preceded it aim to push Hezbollah back from the border and allow residents of northern Israel to return to their homes.

The Lebanese armed group began launching rockets into Israel in support of its ally, Hamas, one day after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel and ensuing Israeli offensive in Gaza.

Israel responded with airstrikes and shelling, and the two sides were quickly locked into a monthslong, low-level conflict that has escalated sharply in recent weeks.

Lebanese officials say that more than 1 million people have been displaced. Palestinian refugees are a relatively small but growing proportion. At least three camps — Ein el Hilweh, el Buss and Beddawi — have been directly hit by airstrikes, while others have received evacuation warnings or have seen strikes nearby.

Dorothee Klaus, UNRWA’s director in Lebanon, said around 20,000 Palestinian refugees have been displaced from camps in the south.

UNRWA was hosting around 4,300 people — including Lebanese citizens and Syrian refugees as well as Palestinians — in 12 shelters as of Thursday, Klaus said, "and this is a number that is now steadily going to increase."

The agency is preparing to open three more shelters if needed, Klaus said.

"We have been preparing for this emergency for weeks and months," she said.

Refugees are desperate and making do

Outside of the center in Sebline, where he is staying, Lebanese citizen Abbas Ferdoun has set up a makeshift convenience store out of the back of a van. He had to leave his own store outside of the Burj Shemali camp behind and flee two weeks ago, eventually ending up at the shelter.

"Lebanese, Syrians, Palestinians, we’re all in the same situation," Ferdoun said.

In Gaza, UN centers housing displaced people have themselves been targeted by strikes, with Israeli officials claiming that the centers were being used by fighters. Some worry that pattern could play out again in Lebanon.

Hicham Kayed, deputy general coordinator with Al-Jana, the local NGO administering the shelter in Sebline, said he felt the international "response to the destruction of these facilities in Gaza was weak, to be honest," so "fear is present" that they might be similarly targeted in Lebanon.

Sharari said she feels safe for now, but she remains anxious about her father and others who stayed behind in the camp despite the warnings — and about whether she will have a home to return to.

She still follows the news obsessively but now, she said, "I’m following what’s happening in Gaza and what’s happening in Lebanon."