Israeli strikes in Lebanon impacted more than two dozen hospitals, with five hospitals out of operation and 22 partially damaged, Youssef Bakhash, head of the Lebanese Doctors’ Syndicate, told Al Jazeera.
Around 150 healthcare workers have been killed, including four doctors “who were performing their humanitarian and medical duties,” Bakhash said Tuesday. More than 100 primary care centers have been forced to shut down and 150 ambulances have been destroyed as a result of the strikes, the doctor added.
While attacks on the country’s medical facilities and healthcare workers have been ongoing throughout the past year, Bakhash said, they have escalated since September when fighting between Hezbollah and Israel ramped up.
More context: An Israeli strike near Beirut’s Rafik Hariri University Hospital on Monday killed at least 18 people, injured dozens more and caused significant damage to the hospital, according to authorities. The Israeli military said it hit a “Hezbollah terrorist target,” without giving further details.
The public hospital, considered the largest in Lebanon, was not in an area covered by evacuation orders issued by the military, CNN analysis has found.
In an interview with CNN on Monday, an official at another hospital in central Beirut vehemently denied the Israeli military’s accusations that a Hezbollah bunker was located below it as “baseless”.
The Israeli military had said the alleged bunker under the Sahel General hospital contains “millions of dollars in gold and cash” and “serves as a central financial facility for Hezbollah.” It showed computer-generated graphics and illustrations of the bunker, which could not be verified by CNN.
Fadi Fakhry Alame, one of the directors of the Sahel General hospital, said the Israeli military has made similar claims in Gaza before targeting hospitals. “Now they are doing it in Lebanon,” he said.
