The ground shook, windows shattered, and the cries of patients filled the air. An Israeli bomb had just struck Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs in yet another near-nightly attack \u2013 this time hitting a building across the street from Lebanon\u2019s biggest public hospital. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was treating a patient when the bomb went off. I fell over him from the shock of it,\u201d said Mohammad Fouani, an emergency room nurse at Rafik Hariri University Hospital, recalling the aftermath of the October 21 attack. \u201cThe smoke was so thick; I could barely see my fellow colleagues.\u201d <\/p>\n
Israel said the strike hit a Hezbollah target, though the area was not covered in Israeli military evacuation orders for locations with alleged links to the Iran-backed group in the south of Beirut. At least four people, including a child, were killed and 24 injured in the residential building some 70 meters away from the hospital, Lebanon\u2019s health ministry said. <\/p>\n
Lebanon\u2019s health sector has been in the thick of a ferocious Israeli air assault as Israel and Hezbollah trade fire in an ongoing war, with the country\u2019s south and Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs hardest hit. In the first month of its all-out air offensive in Lebanon, which began on September 23, Israeli strikes damaged 34 hospitals, killed 111 emergency medical technicians (EMTs), and hit 107 ambulances, according to data compiled by the Lebanese health ministry. <\/p>\n
Around 20% of all hospitals registered with the health ministry in Lebanon have been damaged in a month of attacks, with most strikes landing in their vicinity, according to data compiled by medical authorities. <\/p>\n
\u201cHealth institutions are supposed to be sanctuaries,\u201d said Abiad. \u201cIt\u2019s clear that this is premeditated, that this is a state policy that Israel is following, whether in Gaza or in Lebanon.\u201d <\/p>\n
The UN special coordinator for Lebanon said on October 25 that \u201cfirst responders heeding the call to help, including healthcare personnel and paramedics, have also been hard hit,\u201d and called the number of attacks impacting healthcare facilities and personnel \u201calarming.\u201d <\/p>\n
The attacks on the first responders, said Abiad, has sent \u201ca very chilling message: if you\u2019re injured, you\u2019re going to die.\u201d <\/p>\n
Since September 23, Israeli strikes have killed eight people inside the premises of four hospitals, and eight facilities have been forced to close, according to the health ministry. <\/p>\n
Hospitals and other medical establishments are protected civilian objects under international humanitarian law. It is illegal, with few exceptions, to attack hospitals, ambulances or other health facilities, or to otherwise prevent them from providing care. In a report released on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch referred to Israeli attacks on healthcare workers in Lebanon as \u201capparent war crimes.\u201d <\/p>\n
The threat to Lebanon\u2019s healthcare sector was felt most acutely on the night of October 21. As well as the strike that hit the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, Israel also claimed that another major hospital in the south of Beirut, Al Sahel General Hospital, was located above a Hezbollah bunker. Hours later, hospital staff and patients evacuated the facility for fear it would be hit. The next day, journalists toured the premises and said they found no evidence to support the claim. <\/p>\n
Israel published a 3D graphic to show what they claimed was a Hezbollah underground facility storing cash and gold beneath the hospital. Officials at Sahel General Hospital vehemently denied the accusation, and Israel has not struck the hospital. <\/p>\n
For the Lebanese, the graphic was reminiscent of imagery released by the Israeli military last year alleging the presence of a Hamas \u201ccommand-and-control\u201d center under Gaza City\u2019s al-Shifa hospital. The hospital was later attacked by Israeli forces. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, what\u2019s really concerning is that the rhetoric from the Israelis is the same, especially when they talk about infrastructure beneath healthcare,\u201d said Dr. Thaer Ahmad, an American physician who volunteered at Gaza\u2019s Al Nasser hospital in Khan Younis earlier this year and is now working in Lebanon. <\/p>\n
Ahmad said all healthcare workers he\u2019s interacted with are \u201cpessimistic,\u201d and fear the health system will suffer the same fate as it has in Gaza. <\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s air, ground and naval assault on Hezbollah in Lebanon has decimated the Iran-backed group\u2019s military leadership and dealt harsh blows to its rank-and-file, as well as to its arsenal of weaponry. It has also killed hundreds of civilians, according to health authorities, and destroyed large swathes of civilian infrastructure. <\/p>\n
Israel has regularly dropped 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound bombs on Lebanon, according to analysis of aftermath imagery by weapons experts, inflicting catastrophic damage to neighborhoods and towns. The Israeli military has argued that it has deployed these bombs as bunker busters to destroy Hezbollah\u2019s underground infrastructure. <\/p>\n
The lethal fragmentation radius of these bombs puts nearby people and civilian structures, such as hospitals, at serious risk. When they are dropped, white-hot metal fragments can fly out in all directions, tearing through their surroundings. Known by experts as a \u201ckill zone,\u201d the area of exposure to injury or death around a target can range from 340 meters for small-diameter bombs, to 365 meters for 1,000 and 2,000 bombs, weapons experts say. <\/p>\n
All eight hospitals in the southern suburbs of Beirut, known as Dahiyeh, fell within the lethal fragmentation zones of verified airstrikes. According to the health ministry, all of these healthcare facilities were damaged in the first month of Israel\u2019s offensive since late September. Three hospitals on the edges of the area were also damaged, according to the ministry\u2019s data. <\/p>\n
Almost all of Hezbollah\u2019s leadership were killed in Israeli strikes in Dahiyeh, the group\u2019s seat of power. Several videos of attacks there have shown signs of secondary explosions \u2013 evidence that at least some of the targets were weapons depots. <\/p>\n
Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs, previously home to around a million people, were also a major flashpoint of Israeli attacks in the country\u2019s last all-out war with Lebanon in 2006. Airstrikes there transformed large parts of the area into a seemingly endless stretch of rubble and detritus. Yet back then, the bombing campaign left hospitals in the south of Beirut comparatively unscathed. <\/p>\n
Under international law, a hospital can lose its special protected status only if it is being used for military purposes. But the wounded and sick inside are still protected by the principle of proportionality, and time must be given for evacuation before an attack. <\/p>\n
The analysis found that the weapon was likely a GBU-39. <\/p>\n