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With Hospitals Full in Lebanon, Family Flees to Give Birth in Iraq

Lubana Ismail, a displaced Lebanese woman who fled from her home in Tyre due to Israeli bombardments in Southern Lebanon, holds her newborn baby girl, Zahraa, to whom she gave birth in Iraq, as she sits with her family at a hotel in Najaf, Iraq, October 7, 2024. (Reuters)
Lubana Ismail, a displaced Lebanese woman who fled from her home in Tyre due to Israeli bombardments in Southern Lebanon, holds her newborn baby girl, Zahraa, to whom she gave birth in Iraq, as she sits with her family at a hotel in Najaf, Iraq, October 7, 2024. (Reuters)
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With Hospitals Full in Lebanon, Family Flees to Give Birth in Iraq

Lubana Ismail, a displaced Lebanese woman who fled from her home in Tyre due to Israeli bombardments in Southern Lebanon, holds her newborn baby girl, Zahraa, to whom she gave birth in Iraq, as she sits with her family at a hotel in Najaf, Iraq, October 7, 2024. (Reuters)
Lubana Ismail, a displaced Lebanese woman who fled from her home in Tyre due to Israeli bombardments in Southern Lebanon, holds her newborn baby girl, Zahraa, to whom she gave birth in Iraq, as she sits with her family at a hotel in Najaf, Iraq, October 7, 2024. (Reuters)

Lubana Ismail had just fled her village in southern Lebanon with her husband and two children when she went into labor. She had swollen veins in her uterus and needed immediate medical supervision to give birth safely.

They searched for a hospital in Beirut or Sidon that would admit her, but all were full of the dead and wounded.

"No hospital accepted me. We were turned away everywhere until my father suggested we go to Iraq," she recounted.

So they boarded a flight and flew to Najaf. It was there, in a former war zone 1,000 km (600 miles) from home, that Lubana finally gave birth to baby Zahraa, healthy and safe.

The proud father, Fouad Youssef, recounted the perils of their evacuation.

"At first, we went to Tyre, but a strike hit directly next to us. We decided to go to Beirut, thinking it would be safer, but even on the way, a strike hit near us,” he said.

"During our two days of displacement, I tried to get my wife into a hospital because her labor was difficult. But due to the high number of injuries and martyrs, there were no vacancies."

More than a million Lebanese have fled their homes since Israel intensified its airstrikes and launched a ground campaign in southern Lebanon against the Hezbollah movement which has been striking Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Imran Riza, UN humanitarian coordinator, said the pace of displacement since Sept. 23 had exceeded worst case scenarios, and too much damage was being done to civilian infrastructure.

Najaf is accustomed to handling the emergency medical needs of foreigners, and Iraqis have endured almost two decades of war at home. But receiving refugees from Lebanon is unexpected. Iraq's interior ministry says around 5,700 Lebanese have arrived so far.

Lubana and Fouad are grateful to have found a safe place to bring their family and give birth to their daughter. But they have no idea what will come next.

"We are afraid the war will go on for a long time. What will happen to our children? We were preparing them for school, but now there is no education. Are we going to stay here? Are we leaving? Are we going back to our country?" pondered Youssef, watching news of the destruction in Lebanon on his mobile screen.

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Israeli Strikes Hit Southern Lebanon, but Tense Ceasefire Holds

Smoke billows over Beirut's southern suburbs after Israeli strikes, amid hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Baabda, Lebanon, November 25, 2024. (Reuters)
Smoke billows over Beirut's southern suburbs after Israeli strikes, amid hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Baabda, Lebanon, November 25, 2024. (Reuters)
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Israeli Strikes Hit Southern Lebanon, but Tense Ceasefire Holds

Smoke billows over Beirut's southern suburbs after Israeli strikes, amid hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Baabda, Lebanon, November 25, 2024. (Reuters)
Smoke billows over Beirut's southern suburbs after Israeli strikes, amid hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Baabda, Lebanon, November 25, 2024. (Reuters)

Israeli jets Sunday launched an airstrike over a southern Lebanese border village, while troops shelled other border towns and villages still under Israeli control, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported.

The attacks come days after a US-brokered ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike in the village of Yaroun, nor did the Hezbollah. Israel continues to call on displaced Lebanese not to return to dozens of southern villages in this current stage of the ceasefire. It also continues to impose a daily curfew for people moving across the Litani River between 5 pm and 7 am, The AP reported.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and the Lebanese military have been critical of Israeli strikes and overflights since the ceasefire went into effect, accusing Israel of violating the agreement. The military said it had filed complaints, but no clear military action has been taken by Hezbollah in response, meaning that the tense cessation of hostilities has not yet broken down.

When Israel has issued statements about these strikes, it says they were done to thwart possible Hezbollah attacks.

The United States military announced Friday that Major General Jasper Jeffers alongside senior US envoy Amos Hochstein will co-chair a new US-led monitoring committee that includes France, the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon known as UNIFIL, Lebanon, and Israel. Hochstein led over a year of shuttle diplomacy to broker the ceasefire deal, and his role will be temporary until a permanent civilian co-chair is appointed.

Lebanon meanwhile is trying to pick up the pieces and return to some level of normal life after the war that decimated large swaths of its south and east, displacing an estimated 1.2 million people. The Lebanese military said it detonated unexploded munitions left over from Israeli strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon. Elsewhere, the Lebanese Civil Defense said it removed five bodies from under the rubble in two southern Lebanese towns over the past 24 hours.

The first phase of the ceasefire is a 60-day cessation of hostilities where Hezbollah militants are supposed to withdraw from southern Lebanon north of the Litani River and Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon into northern Israel. Lebanese troops are to deploy in large numbers in the south, effectively being the only armed force in control of the south alongside UNIFIL peacekeepers.

But challenges still remain at this current stage. Many families who want to bury their dead deep in southern Lebanon are unable to do so at this point.

The Lebanese Health Ministry and military allocated a plot of land in the coastal city of Tyre for those people to be temporarily laid to rest. Dr. Wissam Ghazal of the Health Ministry in Tyre said almost 200 bodies have been temporarily buried in that plot of land, until the situation near the border calms down.

“Until now, we haven’t been able to go to our village, and our hearts are burning because our martyrs are buried in this manner,” said Om Ali, who asked to be called by a nickname that means “Ali’s mother” in Arabic. Her husband was a combatant killed in the war from the border town of Aita el-Shaab, just a stone’s throw from the tense border.

“We hope the crisis ends soon so we can go and bury them properly as soon as possible, because truly, leaving the entrusted ones buried in a non-permanent place like this is very difficult,” she said.

In the meantime, cash-strapped Lebanon is trying to fundraise as much money as it can to help rebuild the country the war cost some $8.5 billion in damages and losses according to the World Bank, and to help recruit and train troops to deploy 10,000 personnel into southern Lebanon. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri also called for parliament to convene to elect a president next month to break a gridlock of over two years and reactivate the country's crippled state institutions.