In Less Than a Week, Israel Attacked Three Hospitals in Southern Lebanon, Killing Nine People and Wounding More Than 150

On Wednesday, June 3, a strike hit the immediate vicinity of the public hospital in Tebnine. Several days earlier, Israel attacked areas near the Hiram and Jabal Amel hospitals in Tyre. The strike near Jabal Amel on Monday killed 4 people and wounded 127 others. Most of those injured were medical workers.

“It was an ordinary day at the hospital, and then suddenly, for no reason, they struck the hospital. It was a catastrophe,” said Wael Mroueh, the director of Jabal Amel. The strike hit the building directly in front of the hospital and destroyed it completely.

The blast knocked out power at the hospital and destroyed much of the first floor. Medical staff had to evacuate patients from the intensive care unit, where people were connected to machines. The unit itself was also damaged.

“I never expected something like this could happen. We had prepared ourselves psychologically for the possibility that someone from our medical staff might be targeted, but such a powerful strike, carried out in this way—we did not expect that,” Mroueh said.

The World Health Organization said the attacks are depriving the most vulnerable patients of access to medical care. Abdinasir Abubakar, the UN agency’s representative in Lebanon, said access to basic services had already been “critically constrained” and called for the strikes to stop.

These hospitals are among the few medical facilities in southern Lebanon still operating. The region has already endured mass displacement. According to Abubakar, a third hospital in Tyre was not damaged, but it was overwhelmed by an influx of wounded patients.

Tyre—one of the largest cities in southern Lebanon—is hosting displaced residents from surrounding villages, many of whom have limited access to medical care.

According to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, since the start of the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel on March 2, Israeli strikes have killed at least 130 medical workers and hit 162 ambulances and medical facilities. The ministry said that on Wednesday, an Israeli strike on an ambulance killed two emergency workers and critically wounded another.

The Israeli military said it had struck “Hezbollah infrastructure in the Tyre area” and acknowledged that the hospital had been “accidentally affected,” but said it was not the target of the strike. Israel also accused Hezbollah of having “taken over” one of the attacked hospitals in Tebnine and said medical staff there were treating wounded fighters.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry called the accusation a “fabrication” and said that “this threat is another episode in the escalating series of Israeli attacks on medical facilities.”

The Tebnine hospital hosts medical units from the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Lebanese Red Cross and the Lebanese army.

Analysts and human rights experts say attacks on medical infrastructure are intended to worsen living conditions in southern Lebanon. Strikes on medical facilities and medical workers are a war crime.

Despite the damage to Jabal Amel, Mroueh said the hospital has already resumed receiving patients.

“On the day of the strike, we delivered two babies. We continue to receive victims of airstrikes,” Mroueh said. “Not a single doctor or nurse left. They said they wanted to keep working.”

The fighting began on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in response to the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.

On April 17, Lebanon and Israel signed a ceasefire agreement, but outside Beirut the fighting did not stop.

Since March 2, Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed more than 3,468 people. On the Israeli side, at least 21 soldiers have been killed by Hezbollah, along with two civilians inside Israel.