Lebanese emergency services overwhelmed and desperate for supplies

Lebanese emergency services overwhelmed and desperate for supplies
An economic crisis that began in 2019 and a massive 2020 port explosion have left Lebanon struggling to provide basic services such as electricity and medical care. (AFP)
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Updated 02 October 2024
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Lebanese emergency services overwhelmed and desperate for supplies

Lebanese emergency services overwhelmed and desperate for supplies
  • The civil defense forces of one of the world’s most war-torn nations are shocked at the destruction underway in Lebanon
  • An economic crisis that began in 2019 and a massive 2020 port explosion have left Lebanon struggling to provide basic services such as electricity and medical care

BEIRUT: When Israel bombed buildings outside the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, Mohamed Arkadan and his team rushed to an emergency unlike anything they had ever seen.
About a dozen apartments had collapsed onto the hillside they once overlooked, burying more than 100 people. Even after 17 years with the civil defense forces of one of the world’s most war-torn nations, Arkadan was shocked at the destruction. By Monday afternoon — about 24 hours after the bombing — his team had pulled more than 40 bodies — including children’s — from the rubble, along with 60 survivors.
The children’s bodies broke his heart, said Arkadan, 38, but his team of over 30 first responders’ inability to help further pained him more. Firetrucks and ambulances haven’t been replaced in years. Rescue tools and equipment are in short supply. His team has to buy their uniforms out of pocket.
An economic crisis that began in 2019 and a massive 2020 port explosion have left Lebanon struggling to provide basic services such as electricity and medical care. Political divisions have left the country of 6 million without a president or functioning government for more than two years, deepening a national sense of abandonment reaching down to the men whom the people depend on in emergencies.
“We have zero capabilities, zero logistics,” Arkadan said. “We have no gloves, no personal protection gear.”
War has upended Lebanon again
Israel’s intensified air campaign against Hezbollah has upended the country. Over 1,000 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since Sept. 17, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes, sleeping on beaches and streets.
The World Health Organization said over 30 primary health care centers around Lebanon’s affected areas have been closed.
On Tuesday, Israel said it began a limited ground operation against Hezbollah and warned people to evacuate several southern communities, promising further escalation.
Lebanon is “grappling with multiple crises, which have overwhelmed the country’s capacity to cope,” said Imran Riza, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon, who said the UN had allocated $24 million in emergency funding for people affected by the fighting.
Exhausted medical staff are struggling to cope with the daily influx of new patients. Under government emergency plans, hospitals and medical workers have halted non-urgent operations.
Government shelters are full
In the southern province of Tyre, many doctors have fled along with residents. In Nabatiyeh, the largest province in southern Lebanon, first responders say they have been working around the clock since last week to reach hundreds of people wounded in bombings that hit dozens of villages and towns, often many on the same day.
After the bombing in Sidon nearly 250 first responders joined Arkadan’s team, including a specialized search-and-rescue unit from Beirut, some 45 kilometers (28 miles) to the north. His team didn’t have the modern equipment needed to pull people from a disaster.
“We used traditional tools, like scissors, cables, shovels,” Arkadan said.
“Anyone here?” rescuers shouted through the gaps in mounds of rubble, searching for survivors buried deeper underground. One excavator removed the debris slowly, to avoid shaking the heaps of bricks and mangled steel.
Many sought refuge in the ancient city of Tyre, 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the border with Israel, thinking it was likely to be spared bombardment. More than 8,000 people arrived, said Hassan Dbouk, the head of its disaster management unit.
He said that there were no pre-positioned supplies, such as food parcels, hygiene kits and mattresses, and moving trucks now is fraught with danger. Farmers have been denied access to their land because of the bombings and the municipality is struggling to pay salaries.
The humanitarian situation is catastrophic
Meanwhile, garbage is piling up on the streets. The number of municipal workers has shrunk from 160 to 10.
“The humanitarian situation is catastrophic,” Dbouk said.
Wissam Ghazal, the health ministry official in Tyre, said in one hospital, only five of 35 doctors have remained. In Tyre province, eight medics, including three with a medical organization affiliated with Hezbollah, were killed over two days, he said.
Over the weekend, the city itself became a focus of attacks.
Israeli warplanes struck near the port city’s famed ruins, along its beaches and in residential and commercial areas, forcing thousands of residents to flee. At least 15 civilians were killed Saturday and Sunday, including two municipal workers, a soldier and several children, all but one from two families.
It took rescuers two days to comb through the rubble of a home in the Kharab neighborhood in the city’s center, where a bomb had killed nine members of the Al-Samra family.
Six premature babies in incubators around the city were moved to Beirut. The city’s only doctor, who looked after them, couldn’t move between hospitals under fire, Ghazal said.
One of the district’s four hospitals shut after sustaining damage from a strike that affected its electricity supply and damaged the operations room. In two other hospitals, glass windows were broken. For now, the city’s hospitals are receiving more killed than wounded.
“But you don’t know what will happen when the intensity of attacks increases. We will definitely need more.”
Making do with what they have
Hosein Faqih, head of civil defense in the Nabatiyeh province, said that “we are working in very difficult and critical circumstances because the strikes are random. We have no protection. We have no shields, no helmets, no extra hoses. The newest vehicle is 25 years old. We are still working despite all that.”
At least three of his firefighters’ team were killed in early September. Ten have been injured since then. Of 45 vehicles, six were hit and are now out of service.
Faqih said he is limiting his team’s search-and-rescue missions to residential areas, keeping them away from forests or open areas where they used to put out fires.
“These days, there is something difficult every day. Body parts are everywhere, children, civilians and bodies under rubble,” Faqih said. Still, he said, he considers his job to be the safety net for the people.
“We serve the people, and we will work with what we have.”


Israel FM says ‘may have opportunity’ for Gaza hostage deal

Israel FM says ‘may have opportunity’ for Gaza hostage deal
Updated 06 December 2024
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Israel FM says ‘may have opportunity’ for Gaza hostage deal

Israel FM says ‘may have opportunity’ for Gaza hostage deal

JERUSALEM: Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Thursday that Israel may have “an opportunity now” to secure a deal for the release of its hostages held by Palestinian militants in Gaza.
Speaking in a video message from a meeting in Malta, he said: “We may have an opportunity now for a hostage deal. Israel is serious about reaching a hostage deal and I hope we can do this and do it as soon as possible.”


Palestinian security forces exchange gunfire with militants in West Bank

Palestinian security forces exchange gunfire with militants in West Bank
Updated 06 December 2024
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Palestinian security forces exchange gunfire with militants in West Bank

Palestinian security forces exchange gunfire with militants in West Bank

JENIN: Gunfights erupted in Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank on Thursday between militants and Palestinian security forces following the theft of vehicles belonging to the Palestinian Authority, according to AFP journalists in the city.
The intense exchanges of fire began around 9:30 PM (1930 GMT) and followed the deployment of members of the security forces around the Jenin refugee camp, which is adjacent to the city and a stronghold for armed groups in the territory, according to the journalist.
Witnesses reported that the Palestinian security forces set up roadblocks on routes leaving the camp.
Tensions were running high in Jenin earlier in the day after a group of armed men seized two vehicles belonging to the PA and paraded through the streets waving Islamic Jihad flags.
In a statement, General Anwar Rajab, spokesman for the security forces, said “a group of outlaws opened fire on the headquarters of the security services” and stole two vehicles.
He said the security forces would “recover the vehicles and hold accountable anyone who committed this act.”
Tensions between the PA and armed groups appear to have been exacerbated by recent arrests by the security forces.
At a press conference inside Jenin camp, Mahmud Abu Talal, spokesman for a collective of local armed groups, said the PA had “abandoned its people in the most difficult circumstances.”
He rejected the label of outlaws and accused the PA of “carrying out a continuous operation to undermine those who protect their people.”
Jenin has long been a bastion of Palestinian armed groups and was the focus of a major Israeli raid launched at the end of August.
Violence in the West Bank, already increasing, surged after the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023.
Israel has occupied the territory since 1967.


Syria war monitor says tens of thousands flee Homs as rebels advance

Syria war monitor says tens of thousands flee Homs as rebels advance
Updated 06 December 2024
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Syria war monitor says tens of thousands flee Homs as rebels advance

Syria war monitor says tens of thousands flee Homs as rebels advance

BEIRUT: Tens of thousands of members of President Bashar Assad’s Alawite minority community were fleeing Syria’s third city Homs Thursday, for fear that Islamist-led rebels would keep up their advance, a war monitor said.
Homs lies just 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Hama, which the rebels captured on Thursday.
Analysts said they expected the fighters led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) to push on toward the city, a key link between Damascus and the Alawite heartland on the Mediterranean coast.
Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported “the mass exodus of Alawites from Homs neighborhoods, with tens of thousands heading toward the Syrian coast, fearing the rebel advance.”
Khaled, who lives on the city’s outskirts told AFP that “the road leading to (coastal) Tartus province was glowing... due to the lights of hundreds of cars on their way out.”
In April 2014, at least 100 people, mostly civilians, were killed in twin attacks in Homs that targeted a majority Alawite neighborhood.
The attacks were claimed by the Al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda which now HTS leader Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani previously led.
Jolani announced his group had cut ties with the jihadists in 2016, and Al-Nusra was dissolved the following year, to be replaced by the key component of HTS.
Haidar, 37, who lives in an Alawite-majority neighborhood, told AFP by telephone that “fear is the umbrella that covers Homs now.”
“I’ve never seen this scene in my life. We are extremely afraid, we don’t know what is happening from one hour to the next,” he said.
He has managed to send his parents to Tartus, but has not found a car to take him and his wife “due to the high demand.”
“When we find a car, we’ll leave as fast as possible for Tartus.”
The province, which hosts a naval base operated by Assad ally Russia, has remained safe though 13 years of war.


Hezbollah leader says $77m allocated to Lebanon war displaced

Hezbollah leader says $77m allocated to Lebanon war displaced
Updated 06 December 2024
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Hezbollah leader says $77m allocated to Lebanon war displaced

Hezbollah leader says $77m allocated to Lebanon war displaced
  • “A total of $57 million has been paid,” covering 172,000 families, or some 75 percent of those registered, while the rest will receive a total of $20 million, Qassem added
  • He thanked Iran for “the generous support,” emphasising Hezbollah’s commitment to shelter and reconstruction

BEIRUT: Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said Thursday that his group and its backer Iran had allocated $77 million so far to Lebanese displaced by its war with Israel, with more to come.
“In November, Hezbollah decided to give a monetary gift — a gift from the Iranian people and Hezbollah — of between $300 and $400 for each family,” out of more than 233,000 families who registered for its assistance, Qassem said.
“A total of $57 million has been paid,” covering 172,000 families, or some 75 percent of those registered, while the rest will receive a total of $20 million, he added in a televised address.
Qassem thanked Iran for “the generous support,” emphasising Hezbollah’s commitment to shelter and reconstruction.
Israel stepped up its campaign in south Lebanon in late September after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas following the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.
In a report released last month, the World Bank provided estimates for damage between October 8, 2023, and October 27, 2024, saying “the conflict has caused $5.1 billion in economic losses,” with damage to physical structures amounting to “at least $3.4 billion” on top of that.
It has also “damaged an estimated 99,209 housing units” — mainly in the south near the border with Israel — totalling $2.8 billion in damage, it said.
Eighty-one percent of damaged and destroyed houses are in the southern districts of Tyre, Nabatiyeh, Sidon, Bint Jbeil and Marjayoun, it said.
Qassem said that in addition to the $77 million already set aside, for “all those whose homes have been completely destroyed and cannot return to them” in Beirut and its southern suburbs, Hezbollah will pay “$14,000 over one year” to cover rent and furniture.
Those living in other areas will receive $12,000 for the same purpose, he added.
“Most of the amount will be offered in cash by the Islamic republic (of Iran) for shelter,,” Qassem said, calling on “brotherly Arab countries and friendly countries to contribute to the reconstruction.”
After Hezbollah and Israel went to war in 2006, Gulf countries led by Qatar helped with reconstruction, while Iran assisted with rebuilding bridges, roads and establishing service centers.


Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian foreign ministers to meet on Friday

Members of a joint force involving Hashed Al-Shaabi and Iraqi army standing guard at the Iraqi-Syrian border on December 5. (AFP
Members of a joint force involving Hashed Al-Shaabi and Iraqi army standing guard at the Iraqi-Syrian border on December 5. (AFP
Updated 06 December 2024
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Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian foreign ministers to meet on Friday

Members of a joint force involving Hashed Al-Shaabi and Iraqi army standing guard at the Iraqi-Syrian border on December 5. (AFP
  • Ministers will discuss situation in Syria after militants seize Aleppo and Hama

CAIRO: Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein will meet his Syrian and Iranian counterparts on Friday to discuss the situation in Syria, the Iraqi state news agency said on Thursday.
The Friday meeting comes after a whirlwind advance by Syrian militantss that started last week as they captured the main northern city of Aleppo from Iran-backed Syrian President Bashar Assad and then captured the city of Hama on Thursday.
Earlier on Thursday, Syrian foreign minister Bassam Sabbagh arrived in Iraq’s capital Baghdad, the Iraqi state news agency (INA) said, adding that the Iranian foreign minister is to arrive on Friday.
Some Iraqi fighters entered Syria early this week to support Assad, Iraqi and Syrian sources said. Iraq’s Iran-aligned Hashd Al-Shaabi paramilitary coalition has mobilized along the border with Syria, saying this was purely preventative in case of spillover into Iraq.