Lebanon doctors tell of horror after pager blasts

Lebanon doctors tell of horror after pager blasts
Civil Defense first-responders carry a man who was wounded after his handheld pager exploded, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, on Sept. 17, 2024.(AP)
Short Url
Updated 18 September 2024
Follow

Lebanon doctors tell of horror after pager blasts

Lebanon doctors tell of horror after pager blasts
  • “The injuries were mainly to the eyes and hands, with finger amputations, shrapnel in the eyes,” said doctor Joelle Khadra
  • A doctor at another hospital in Beirut said he worked all night and that the injuries were “out of this world — never seen anything like it“

BEIRUT: Doctors in Lebanon spoke Wednesday of horrific eye injuries and finger amputations, a day after Hezbollah paging devices exploded across the country, killing 12 people and wounding up to 2,800.
“The injuries were mainly to the eyes and hands, with finger amputations, shrapnel in the eyes — some people lost their sight,” said doctor Joelle Khadra, who was working in emergency at Beirut’s Hotel-Dieu hospital.
Hundreds of wireless paging devices belonging to members of the Iran-backed group exploded simultaneously on Tuesday, hours after Israel said it was broadening the aims of the Gaza war to include its fight against Hamas’s Lebanese ally.
Khadra told AFP that Hotel-Dieu, located in the Lebanese capital’s Christian-majority Ashrafieh district, treated about 80 injured.
Around 20 “were admitted to intensive care immediately and were put on ventilators to ensure they wouldn’t suffocate due to the swelling in their faces,” she said.
“The rest are going one after the other to the operating room. Today, we have 55 surgeries,” she added, wearing her white doctor’s coat over her blue scrubs.
Hezbollah, which has traded near daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces in support of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, has vowed to retaliate for the pager blasts, which it blamed on Israel.
Israel has not yet comment on the explosions, which went off in Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon, from Beirut’s southern suburbs to Lebanon’s south and in the east near the Syrian border.
A doctor at another hospital in Beirut said he worked all night and that the injuries were “out of this world — never seen anything like it.”
“It’s beyond what can be described,” he said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized by the hospital to speak to the media.
“We have a lot of injuries with amputated fingers” because people were holding the pagers in one or both hands, he said, while some people who had been sitting on the floor also had wounded feet.
But the “most devastating” wounds were when the pagers blew up in people’s faces, he said, citing up to 40 patients with eye injuries, most of them severe.
Around three-quarters of those patients “lost one eye completely, and the other eye is either somewhat salvageable or barely salvageable,” he said, while “15 to 20 percent... lost both eyes in a way that’s irreparable.”
“A lot of colleagues have been saying this is worse compared to the August 4... (eye) injuries that we saw,” he said.
On August 4, 2020, a catastrophic explosion at Beirut’s port killed more than 220 people and injured some 6,500, with several hundred at least suffering ocular injuries and some people even blinded in one eye by flying shards of glass and other debris.
The doctor also reported “a lot of burns and foreign bodies — metallic pieces of pagers being retrieved from patients’ eyes, brains, faces, sinuses, from their insides, from their bones.”
He said there was “a lot of tissue loss, fingers lost — things that we can’t repair, we can’t replace.”
Health Minister Firass Abiad said Wednesday that two children were among 12 people killed, while almost 300 people were “in critical condition,” some suffering facial injuries and brain haemorrhaging.
Of some 1,800 people who were admitted to hospital, “460 needed operations on their eyes, face or limbs, particularly the hands,” he said, noting “multiple finger or hand amputations.”
Lebanon, enduring a grinding five-year economic crisis, received a delivery of medical aid from Iraq on Wednesday morning, while doctors and nurses from Iran’s Red Crescent also arrived to assist, Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported, and Jordan said it sent aid and medical supplies.
The office of the United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon said on X that “praise must go to the medical corps and emergency professionals,” adding the importance of their work after the pager blasts “cannot be overstated.”


UN chief calls for immediate ceasefire in Lebanon

UN chief calls for immediate ceasefire in Lebanon
Updated 44 min 49 sec ago
Follow

UN chief calls for immediate ceasefire in Lebanon

UN chief calls for immediate ceasefire in Lebanon
  • “An all-out war must be avoided in Lebanon at all costs,” Dujarric said

UNITED NATIONS: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed on Tuesday for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country to be respected, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
“An all-out war must be avoided in Lebanon at all costs,” Dujarric said in a statement, adding that Guterres spoke with Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati earlier on Tuesday, telling him the UN was ready to help those in need.
“The Secretary-General will continue his contacts, and his representatives on the ground will also continue their efforts to de-escalate the situation,” Dujarric said.


Turkiye working with 20 countries in Lebanon evacuation preparations

Passengers disembark a Bulgarian government evacuation flight from Lebanon at Sofia airport on September 30, 2024. (AFP)
Passengers disembark a Bulgarian government evacuation flight from Lebanon at Sofia airport on September 30, 2024. (AFP)
Updated 01 October 2024
Follow

Turkiye working with 20 countries in Lebanon evacuation preparations

Passengers disembark a Bulgarian government evacuation flight from Lebanon at Sofia airport on September 30, 2024. (AFP)
  • Foreign Ministry said a coordination center had been set up to handle evacuation requests in line with the plans made by Turkish institutions

ANKARA: Turkiye is ready to carry out a possible evacuation of Turks from Lebanon via air and sea, and is working with around 20 countries on preparing for a possible evacuation of foreign nationals via Turkiye, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
It said the security conditions in Lebanon could deteriorate, as Israel launched a ground incursion into south Lebanon, and added a coordination center had been set up to handle evacuation requests in line with the plans made by Turkish institutions.
“The guidelines for the evacuation of foreign nationals via our country have also been set, the necessary preparations are being carried out with around 20 countries that have requested support so far,” it said. 


Iranian attack on Israel may be at least as big as one in April, US official says

Iranian attack on Israel may be at least as big as one in April, US official says
Updated 01 October 2024
Follow

Iranian attack on Israel may be at least as big as one in April, US official says

Iranian attack on Israel may be at least as big as one in April, US official says
  • Iran appeared to be preparing to imminently launch a ballistic missile attack against Israel

WASHINGTON: Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Israel could be as big or potentially bigger than the one in April, if it goes ahead, although that assessment is based on initial indications and it is difficult to be certain, a US official told Reuters on Tuesday.
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters earlier on Tuesday that Iran appeared to be preparing to imminently launch a ballistic missile attack against Israel.


Israel carries out strikes in Beirut, southern suburbs, sources say

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP)
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP)
Updated 01 October 2024
Follow

Israel carries out strikes in Beirut, southern suburbs, sources say

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburb, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP)
  • A high-rise building was hit in the city’s Jnah area, the sources said

BEIRUT: Israel carried out two attacks on Beirut on Tuesday afternoon, striking the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital and the city’s southern entrance, two security sources said.
A high-rise building was hit in the city’s Jnah area, the sources said.
The Israeli military said it was targeting the Lebanese capital and had carried out a “precise strike.”


Tunisia presidential candidate Zammel sentenced to 12 years in prison

Tunisia presidential candidate Zammel sentenced to 12 years in prison
Updated 01 October 2024
Follow

Tunisia presidential candidate Zammel sentenced to 12 years in prison

Tunisia presidential candidate Zammel sentenced to 12 years in prison
  • It was the third prison sentence imposed on Ayachi Zammel in two weeks
  • Zammel, head of the opposition Azimoun party, has been jailed since last month

TUNIS: A Tunisian court sentenced presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel to 12 years in prison on Tuesday, amid growing opposition anger against President Kais Saied, whose critics accuse him of using the judiciary to sideline his opponents.

It was the third prison sentence imposed on Zammel in two weeks, just five days before the presidential election in which he is one of just two candidates permitted to stand against Saied. Three other high profile opposition figures were barred.

Abdessattar Massoudi, Zammel’s lawyer, said that Zammel was sentenced to 12 years in prison by Tunis court on charges of document falsification. Massoudi described the verdict as “unfair and a farce.”

Zammel, head of the opposition Azimoun party, has been jailed since last month on charges of falsifying voter signatures on his candidacy paperwork, accusations he described as manufactured by Saied’s government. He has been allowed to continue to stand in the election while jailed.

Political tensions in the North African country have risen ahead of the Oct. 6 election since an electoral commission named by Saied disqualified three other prominent candidates last month, amid protests by opposition and civil society groups.

Tunisia was the only Arab country to emerge with a peaceful democracy from the 2011 “Arab Spring” protests against autocratic rulers across the Middle East and North Africa.

But since being elected in 2019, Saied has gradually amassed greater powers, arguing that he needs them to combat a corrupt elite. He dissolved the elected parliament and began ruling by decree in 2021, a move the opposition described as a coup.

The electoral commission has rejected a ruling by Tunisia’s administrative court to reinstate the barred candidates for the upcoming election. Lawmakers loyal to Saied then approved a law stripping the administrative court of authority over election disputes.

The opposition and civil society groups called for a mass protest on Friday against what they describe as Saied’s authoritarian rule, and said they would continue escalation and demonstrations.