Lebanese hospitals pushed to the brink as discontent with Hezbollah mounts
Health workers report harrowing scenes from operating rooms after massive attacks, while anti-Hezbollah camp raises voice against escalation, calling on Nasrallah to ‘climb down’
Gianluca Pacchiani is the Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel
Lebanon’s private medical facilities, which house 85% of all hospital beds in the country, are at full capacity following last week’s attacks on communication devices held by Hezbollah members, Sleiman Haroun, president of Lebanon’s Syndicate of Private Hospitals, has said.
Haroun told the anti-Hezbollah news outlet “This is Beirut” during the weekend that hospitals would be unable to handle additional pressure for at least three weeks, as many of those injured require intensive care and multiple surgeries.
On Sunday, Israel’s Channel 12 news quoted unnamed foreign security sources as saying the attacks were deemed successful due to the high number of injuries they caused, which placed immense strain on Lebanon’s healthcare system, increasing domestic pressure on Hezbollah.
Israel has not taken responsibility for the attacks but is widely seen as being behind them.
Though the extent and gravity of the thousands of injuries sustained in the attacks remain unclear, the impact on Lebanon’s health system has been undeniable.
Haroun warned that if tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border escalate into a full-scale conflict, Lebanon’s hospitals would struggle to manage another influx of wounded.
He compared the current situation to the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion in 2020, which killed over 200 people and injured 7,000. However, he said injuries from the recent attacks are generally far more severe, with most victims requiring hospitalization rather than just emergency room care.
Beirut’s Health Ministry has pledged to cover the costs of treating all the injured, promising to disburse funds from the $11 million allocated by the government to deal with the aftermath of the attacks. However, the outlet pointed out that the cash-strapped government had made similar promises following the 2020 port explosion, but those medical bills remain unpaid.
Lebanese health workers are said to be grappling with the severe nature of many of the injuries, performing complex surgeries to restore faces and limbs. This is Beirut detailed harrowing scenes inside operating rooms, with medical professionals “reconstructing disfigured faces, saving eyes, restoring lips and noses, and repairing shredded skin and muscles.”
“In some cases, the entire face was gone,” said an unnamed eye specialist, while adding that “collateral victims” were often as gravely injured as the device owners.
Reports of shocking disfigurements have also been corroborated by Lebanese doctors interviewed by The New York Times, who described gruesome injuries: “Eyes blown out of their sockets. Faces torn to pieces by burning shards of plastic. Hands and fingers so mangled that doctors had no choice but to amputate them.”
Pierre Mardelli, an eye doctor quoted by the newspaper, said he was forced to suture eye wounds without anesthesia. He said the blast seemed to have targeted the eyes of device owners, as pagers sent out error messages for long moments, which would encourage their owners to examine them, before they exploded.
Hezbollah under pressure
Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
On Thursday Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the week’s twin attacks on the organization’s devices “could be seen as a declaration of war,” accusing Israel of using them to mask its failure to achieve a military breakthrough against the terror group.
Friday then saw a major Israeli strike in Beirut eliminate many top Hezbollah commanders, leading to increased international concern that a full-scale war could erupt.
Many in Lebanon are blaming Nasrallah for dragging the country into conflict.
In a scathing op-ed in the liberal Lebanese paper L’Orient-Le Jour, editor-in-chief Anthony Samrani argued that Nasrallah has brought Lebanon “to the edge of the abyss.”
Samrani maintained that Hezbollah’s recent setbacks had significantly weakened the group’s operational capabilities and left its command chain compromised.
“Its paranoia is stronger than ever. How do its members communicate now? How do they meet without risking being targeted by another strike? How can they not see spies everywhere?”
“By opening a ‘support front’ in Gaza on Oct. 8, Nasrallah brought Lebanon to the edge of the abyss. But it is Netanyahu who now wants to push us over the edge,” Samrani alleged. “Israel will destroy Lebanon before it destroys Hezbollah.”
Former L’Orient-Le Jour editor-in-chief Issa Goraieb expressed similar concerns, urging the terror leader to de-escalate. “Climbing up a tree takes audacity and skill. But when necessary, it also takes courage to climb down,” he said.
French-Lebanese journalist Marc Saikali echoed his words. In an op-ed in “This is Beirut,” Saikali wrote: “It’s hard to understand how dragging Lebanon into war and bloodshed benefits the people of Gaza.
“Hezbollah’s leader is reluctant to engage in an all-out war, recognizing it as both a military and political suicide. He needs an exit strategy to preserve his influence, but Benjamin Netanyahu stubbornly refuses to provide one.”
