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
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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.



Lebanon’s Migrant Workers Stuck in Limbo as Thousands Flee Conflict

 Fajima Kamara, 28, from Sierra Leone poses for a picture at a shelter for displaced migrant workers, in Hazmieh, Lebanon October 4, 2024. (Reuters)
Fajima Kamara, 28, from Sierra Leone poses for a picture at a shelter for displaced migrant workers, in Hazmieh, Lebanon October 4, 2024. (Reuters)
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Lebanon’s Migrant Workers Stuck in Limbo as Thousands Flee Conflict

 Fajima Kamara, 28, from Sierra Leone poses for a picture at a shelter for displaced migrant workers, in Hazmieh, Lebanon October 4, 2024. (Reuters)
Fajima Kamara, 28, from Sierra Leone poses for a picture at a shelter for displaced migrant workers, in Hazmieh, Lebanon October 4, 2024. (Reuters)

Migrant worker Fajima Kamara came to Lebanon three years ago from Sierra Leone, but when Israeli jets started pounding her neighborhood with airstrikes last month, her employers left her jobless and homeless.

The 28-year-old mother-of-three had been working as a domestic helper for a Lebanese family in the eastern city of Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold.

As a nearly year-long cross-border conflict between Israel and the armed Shiite movement sharply escalated in late September, Kamara's employers sought refuge in Dubai and told her she could not stay in their home while they were away.

Instead, they told her to go and find her "fellow African sisters" in the capital, Beirut, Kamara said.

With her phone and passport still confiscated by her employers and no time to pack, Kamara left Baalbek with nothing but the clothes she was wearing and made her way among the thousands of other displaced people to Beirut, where she hoped to find somewhere to stay.

Turned away by local shelters that were taking in displaced Lebanese, she soon found herself homeless and living on the city streets.

"I slept on the street for two days. Now I have fever," Kamara told Reuters between sneezes.

UN officials said on Friday most of Lebanon's nearly 900 shelters were full, voicing concern for tens of thousands of mostly female, live-in domestic workers being "abandoned" by their employers.

Kamara eventually found refuge at a shelter hurriedly opened by Lebanese volunteers on Oct. 1, but is worried about her future as the conflict intensifies. For now, she hopes to stay on and find another job to avoid having to go home penniless.

About 100 migrant workers and some of their children are staying at the same crowdfunded shelter, sleeping on thin cots on a cement floor and eating on wooden pallets.

Dea Hage-Chahine, who helped lead the project, said she and her team were working around the clock to expand the shelter by adding power generators and a makeshift kitchen.

Their ultimate goal is to help repatriate workers who want to return to their home countries - although most, like Karama, are without a passport.

"For now, for those who told us they want to travel, we initiated the process. For those who want to stay, for now, we have the shelter open for them, providing any needs they require. But we don't know what's next," Hage-Chahine said.

In a country historically wrought by conflict and where a devastating economic crisis has crippled state institutions, grassroots efforts have stepped in across the country to help the displaced.

Lebanese authorities say Israel's escalated offensive has displaced about 1.2 million people - almost a quarter of the population - and killed more than 2,000.