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Beirut, Lebanon \u2013<\/strong> As bombs rained down on Lebanon\u2019s capital, hundreds of people rushed to the American University of Beirut (AUB) Hospital, many crying, many scared. Children were looking for their siblings or their parents, unsure if they were dead or alive.<\/p>\n Israeli forces had bombed 100-plus targets across the country in 10 minutes on Wednesday, despite a ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran that many thought would include Lebanon.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n \u201cIn under an hour, we received around 76 injured people. Unfortunately, six people didn\u2019t make it,\u201d Dr Salah Zeineldine, AUB\u2019s chief medical officer, told Al Jazeera, as the hospital became an \u201cepicentre\u201d for victims of the Israeli attacks.<\/p>\n The death toll from Israel\u2019s attacks across Lebanon on Wednesday has now risen to 303, with 1,150 injured, according to a preliminary toll released Thursday by the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.<\/p>\n Dr Zeineldine noted that a lot of critically injured patients at AUB Hospital were children. The eldest child was 12 years old, while the two patients who had to go directly to the ICU were babies: one a few months old, another only a few weeks old.<\/p>\n The Lebanese Health Ministry said that at least 110 children, women, and elderly people were among those killed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n The main causes of deaths and injuries were from people being crushed due to the blast and parts of buildings falling on them, causing fractured bones and head trauma.<\/p>\n Lebanon is no stranger to war or Israeli air strikes, and medical workers in the country have dealt with many crises in recent years, notably during the 2023-2024 war with Israel, but Dr Zeineldine insists that what happened on Wednesday was \u201ca different ballgame altogether\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a big challenge for us, in Beirut especially. We\u2019ve never lost this many people in a single day. This intensity is not something we\u2019ve ever experienced,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the patients we got were civilians,\u201d Dr Zeineldine said, adding that the attack was \u201cvery random\u201d, not targeting any specific place or group of people. Israel had claimed the attacks targeted the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, but the victims, according to Dr Zeineldine, included \u201clots of children, women, men, elderly people, all kinds of people in the civilian strata\u201d.<\/p>\n At Rafik Hariri University Hospital, a medical coordinator from Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym, MSF, reported that \u201cinjured parents were calling out for their children. Families were coming with children\u2019s pictures, asking if anyone had seen their loved ones\u201d.<\/p>\n The number of casualties is still likely to rise, as rescue workers were still pulling people out of the rubble on Thursday. But even the current figure is already higher than the estimated 218 people who died from the Beirut port blast in 2020, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, and another recent event that devastated Beirut and stretched Lebanon\u2019s healthcare system to its limits.<\/p>\n In several Beirut hospitals, many medical workers were tired yet determined to keep going. Speaking on Thursday at the Hotel-Dieu de France Hospital in Beirut, Dr Antoine Zoghbi, the president of the Lebanese Red Cross, shook his head in disbelief in his office, his eyes tired and mouth dry. \u201cThis is a nightmare, a nightmare,\u201d he repeated over and over again.<\/p>\n Medical officers in Beirut hospitals told Al Jazeera that they prepare their teams for crisis situations to react quickly and effectively to help patients, but added that no one could have expected intense days like these with indiscriminate attacks on civilians.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s different today because they struck without warning,\u201d Dr Zoghbi said. \u201cThey struck many regions at the same time, and they struck hard \u2013 to cause harm, to inflict pain. It\u2019s a war with no rules. It\u2019s a war with no limits.\u201d<\/p>\n The Hotel-Dieu de France Hospital received 15 patients from the attacks on Wednesday, much fewer than in AUB Hospital, but Dr Zoghbi noted that this attack was adding an extra strain on an already depleted healthcare system in Lebanon.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Israel carries on like this, it\u2019s going to result in many more injuries, many more deaths,\u201d Dr Zoghbi said. \u201cSo far, the hospitals have been able to hold out. Will we be able to withstand the second strike, the fourth strike? I don\u2019t know. Will we still have the equipment, the medicine, to keep doing what needs to be done?\u201d<\/p>\n The concern about how the war is worsening economic and social issues in Lebanon was echoed in several Beirut hospitals. Dr Alain Kortbaoui, head of the Emergency Medicine Department at Geitawi Hospital in Beirut, said the war has limited imports and exports, which were already restricted due to the economic crisis in Lebanon since 2019. \u201cWe don\u2019t have any more imports of medication. We never know when we\u2019re going to defeat whatever patients have,\u201d Dr Kortbaoui told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n The World Health Organization also said that some \u2060of \u2060Lebanon\u2019s hospitals could run out of life-saving trauma \u2060medical kits within days, as supplies \u2060near depletion following mass casualties from large-scale Israeli strikes.<\/p>\n With oil prices increasing due to the United States-Israel war on Iran, Dr Kortbaoui said that Lebanese hospitals have been indirectly impacted, since \u201ceverything here works on generators\u201d. The hospital suffers from frequent power cuts, despite medical workers continuing to work as normal to support incoming patients, reeling in pain.<\/p>\n \u201cUnless the hospital is directly hit, it\u2019s going to always perform,\u201d Dr Kortbaoui told Al Jazeera. Lebanese doctors seemed doubtful that hospitals would become targets for Israeli attacks as they had been in Gaza, but after one of the most intense attacks in modern Lebanese history, nobody could predict what Israeli forces would do next. \u201cI still don\u2019t understand why they hit so many regions in Lebanon,\u201d Dr Kortbaoui said. \u201cSometimes we understand the way they\u2019re thinking, but it\u2019s not always the case.\u201d<\/p>\n The doctor added that all four patients he treated from the attacks were still in shock, their memories of the event almost erased. \u201cThey don\u2019t understand what\u2019s going on. The first one that arrived here had two floors that fell on him. He woke up without remembering anything.\u201d<\/p>\n But like in previous crises, Lebanese people showed their solidarity despite the devastation. The Lebanese Red Cross is the sole supplier of blood banks to hospitals, and its open call for blood donations was widely shared by people on social media. Many Lebanese and foreigners went to Beirut hospitals to donate blood shortly after Israel\u2019s attacks. \u201cWhenever there is a crisis, the Lebanese people stand together,\u201d Dr Zoghbi said.<\/p>\n But still, the Lebanese Red Cross president recognised that local initiatives and donations would only go so far in healing the scars that wars and mass displacement have made on the country. \u201cWe are a people who are wounded,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat we can do is remain here, maintain our supplies, and keep operating.\u201d<\/p>\n While for Dr Zeineldine of AUB Hospital, the most direct way to help people in Lebanon right now remains political. According to him, supporting Lebanon\u2019s overwhelmed healthcare system could be summarised in three words: \u201cStop the war.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Beirut, Lebanon \u2013 As bombs rained down on Lebanon\u2019s capital, hundreds of people rushed to the American University of Beirut (AUB) Hospital, many crying, many scared. Children were looking for their siblings or their parents, unsure if they were dead or alive. Israeli forces had bombed 100-plus targets across the country in 10 minutes on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
\u2018A nightmare\u2019<\/h2>\n
Depletion of resources<\/h2>\n
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