Mapping Israeli attacks on Lebanon’s healthcare system

Israel has killed at least 208 health sector workers and carried out more than 280 attacks on emergency medical facilities in Lebanon over the past year.

The Israeli military is repeatedly targeting healthcare facilities and medical workers in Lebanon.

As of November 15, Israel has killed at least 208 health sector workers and injured 311 others according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.

The ministry also recorded at least 286 Israeli attacks on healthcare services, including 66 attacks on hospitals and 220 on emergency medical services.

As a result, some 40 hospitals have been damaged, with eight rendered nonfunctional, and 249 emergency vehicles have been damaged, in what human rights organisations say constitutes potential war crimes.

On Thursday, Israel killed at least 12 medics in an air strike on a civil defence centre in Lebanon’s eastern Baalbek region.

The attacks are forcing medical facilities to close, in a country where the privatised healthcare system was already in dire straits due to an ongoing economic crisis.

Understaffed and under-resourced, the health system has been struggling to maintain services for all those in need, struggling with depleted supplies and exhausted health workers.

Israel has killed at least 3,452 people and injured more than 14,664 in Lebanon since hostilities began last October between Israel and Hezbollah.

Where are healthcare attacks taking place?

Of the 66 Israeli attacks on Lebanon’s hospitals, most have taken place in the country’s southern and western regions and the capital Beirut, with some hospitals struck multiple times.

On October 24, the Health Ministry reported at least eight hospitals had been forced to close, with half of them in the Baabda district in western Lebanon.

Seven other hospitals are only partially functioning.

In addition, Israeli forces have attacked primary healthcare facilities at least 25 times, resulting in the forcible closure of 58 facilities.

Attacks on emergency workers

Israel has perpetrated more than 220 attacks on emergency medical services, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

It has also attacked ambulances, fire trucks and other rescue vehicles 249 times.

Israel has accused Hezbollah of using ambulances to transport weapons, without providing any evidence.

(Al Jazeera)

Do these attacks constitute war crimes?

Hospitals and medical facilities are protected under international law because they are civilian installations.

Last month, Human Rights Watch documented three attacks on medical facilities involving apparent war crimes.

On October 3, Israeli forces attacked an ambulance, and a hospital in southern Lebanon the following day, killing 14 paramedics.

On October 22, Israel killed 13 people in a strike near a hospital in southern Beirut, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

The overnight attack near Rafik Hariri University Hospital, Lebanon’s biggest public health facility, a few kilometres from the city centre, also wounded 57 people, the ministry said.

Rescuers search for survivors at the site of an Israeli attack near Rafik Hariri University Hospital [Yara Nardi/Reuters]