Lebanon’s medics describe 'horror movie' coronavirus conditions

A woman poses for a photograph, as she wears a face shield to help protect herself from the coronavirus outbreak, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, March 27, 2020. (AP)
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Updated 28 March 2020
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Lebanon’s medics describe 'horror movie' coronavirus conditions

  • The number of intensive care specialists in Beirut ranges between 40 and 50 doctors, while there are around 180 pulmonologists

BEIRUT: A doctor at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri University Hospital (RHUH) has described the situation faced by medical staff dealing with coronavirus cases as “a horror movie as long as we are on the front line and we do not know when it will end.”

Dr. Osman Itani, a pulmonologist and intensive care specialist, told Arab News: “A single mistake made while wearing the protective equipment exposes all those taking care of patients suffering from COVID-19 to the virus. There have been several viruses that surfaced and killed many people before disappearing again. However, the problem with this virus is that it spreads rapidly. We usually treat pneumonia with antibiotics, but we are unable to treat the pneumonia resulting from the coronavirus.”

Dr. Itani is a veteran doctor who has worked in hospitals during the civil war and in the harshest security conditions. He considers “the war experience was less dangerous despite all its horrors. We used to treat patients knowing that they will not transmit anything to us or to others.”

“The number of intensive care specialists in Beirut ranges between 40 and 50 doctors, while there are around 180 pulmonologists. Those numbers are less in the rest of the country,” he noted, considering “the measures taken by the Ministry of Health and the government in terms of social distancing are the best to lower the number of cases. Cases in general range from mild to moderate. The number of uninfected people is usually larger than that of the confirmed cases.”

On Friday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases rose to 391 from 368 on Thursday. A new coronavirus-related death of a man in his eighties was recorded at Saint George University Hospital, which raised the number of such deaths in the country to seven deaths.

Pulmonologist and intensive care specialist, Wael Jaroush, told Arab News that “doctors are worried about transmitting the virus to their parents as there is no guaranteed protection. We are treating our patients through the phone and only receive emergency cases in our clinics, while also leaving a free half an hour between the appointments for sterilization purposes.”

HIGHLIGHTS

• On Friday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases rose to 391 from 368 on Thursday.

• A new coronavirus-related death of a man in his 80s was recorded at Saint George University Hospital, which raised the number of such deaths in the country to 7.

Supervisor nurse, Aida Al-Nouri, working at a Beirut hospital, told Arab News that “we are suffering from a shortage of sterilizers. We are living in a state of fear and confusion that we have not seen even during the city’s security crashes. None of those working in the ER knows when he will be infected in spite of all the precautions we are taking.”

“Nurses are scared and some of them do not want to work in the departments dedicated to coronavirus-infected patients unless proper protection is provided,” she said.

Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab visited RHUH and held a press conference alongside Minister of Health Hamad Hassan, urging the Lebanese people to “abide by the measures the government had taken.”

He announced that more than 600,000 food baskets will be distributed to families affected by the lockdown and informed RHUH’s staff that they will be reimbursed by the state.

The Lebanese government extended the lockdown period for two additional weeks, while the director general of Civil Aviation, Fadi Hassan, announced that Beirut Rafik Hariri International Airport will remain closed until April 12.

A political dispute has erupted in the country concerning the repatriation of Lebanese nationals from Africa and Europe.

The speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, criticized the government for refusing to send aircraft to bring back those stranded abroad after the deadline for them to return ended.


Lebanon says 2 hurt as Israeli troops fire on people returning south after truce with Hezbollah

Updated 17 sec ago
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Lebanon says 2 hurt as Israeli troops fire on people returning south after truce with Hezbollah

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded by Israeli fire in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details
It said Israel fired artillery in three other locations near the border

BEIRUT: At least two people were wounded by Israeli fire in southern Lebanon on Thursday, according to state media. The Israeli military said it had fired at people trying to return to certain areas on the second day of a ceasefire with the Hezbollah militant group.
The agreement, brokered by the United States and France, includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah militants are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded by Israeli fire in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. It said Israel fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese militant group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.

Algeria facing growing calls to release French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal

Updated 40 min 3 sec ago
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Algeria facing growing calls to release French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal

  • “The detention without serious grounds of a writer of French nationality is unacceptable,” France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said
  • The European Parliament discussed Algeria’s repression of freedom of speech on Wednesday and called for “his immediate and unconditional release”

PARIS: Politicians, writers and activists have called for the release of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, whose arrest in Algeria is seen as the latest instance of the stifling of creative expression in the military-dominated North African country.
The 75-year-old author, who is an outspoken critic of Islamism and the Algerian regime, has not been heard from by friends, family or his French publisher since leaving Paris for Algiers earlier this month. He has not been seen near his home in his small town, Boumerdes, his neighbors told The Associated Press.
“The detention without serious grounds of a writer of French nationality is unacceptable,” France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Wednesday.
He added Sansal’s work “does honor to both his countries and to the values we cherish.”
The European Parliament discussed Algeria’s repression of freedom of speech on Wednesday and called for “his immediate and unconditional release.”
Algerian authorities have not publicly announced charges against Sansal, but the APS state news service said he was arrested at the airport.
Though no longer censored, Sansal’s novels have in the past faced bans in Algeria. A professed admirer of French culture, his writings on Islam’s role in society, authoritarianism, freedom of expression and the civil war that ravaged Algeria throughout the 1990s have won him fans across the ideological spectrum in France, from far-right leader Marine Le Pen to President Emmanuel Macron, who attended his French naturalization ceremony in 2023.
But his work has provoked ire in Algeria, from both authorities and Islamists, who have issued death threats against him in the 1990s and afterward.
Though few garner such international attention, Sansal is among a long list of political prisoners incarcerated in Algeria, where the hopes of a protest movement that led to the ouster of the country’s then-82 year old president have been crushed under President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
Human rights groups have decried the ongoing repression facing journalists, activists and writers. Amnesty International in September called it a “brutal crackdown on human rights including the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.”
Algerian authorities have in recent months disrupted a book fair in Bejaia and excluded prominent authors from the country’s largest book fair in Algeria has in recent months, including this year’s Goncourt Prize winner Kamel Daoud,
“This tragic news reflects an alarming reality in Algeria, where freedom of expression is no more than a memory in the face of repression, imprisonment and the surveillance of the entire society,” French-Algerian author Kamel Daoud wrote in an editorial signed by more than a dozen authors in Le Point this week.
Sansal has been a polarizing figure in Algeria for holding some pro-Israel views and for likening political Islam to Nazism and totalitarianism in his novels, including “The Oath of the Barbarians” and “2084: The End of the World.”
Despite the controversial subject matter, Sansal had never faced detention. His arrest comes as relations between France and Algeria face newfound strains. France in July backed Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara, angering Algeria, which has long backed the independence Polisario Front and pushed for a referendum to determine the future of the coastal northwest African territory.
“A regime that thinks it has to stop its writers, whatever they think, is certainly a weak regime,” French-Algerian academic Ali Bensaad wrote in a statement posted on Facebook.


Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer killed in Syria, SNN reports

Updated 28 November 2024
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Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer killed in Syria, SNN reports

DUBAI: Iranian Revolutionary Guards Brig. Gen. Kioumars Pourhashemi was killed in the Syrian province of Aleppo by “terrorists” linked to Israel, Iran’s SNN news agency reported on Thursday without giving further details.
Rebels led by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham on Wednesday launched an incursion into a dozen towns and villages in northwest Aleppo province controlled by Syrian President Bashar Assad.


Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire unlikely to hold: UK ex-spy chief

Updated 28 November 2024
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Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire unlikely to hold: UK ex-spy chief

  • Richard Dearlove: Agreement suits both parties in ‘short to medium term’
  • Deal leaves Iran ‘exposed’ as its Lebanese ally is temporarily incapacitated

LONDON: The ceasefire deal struck this week between Israel and Hezbollah is unlikely to hold, a former head of MI6 has warned.

Richard Dearlove, who headed the British intelligence service from 1999 to 2004, told Sky News that the deal, which came into effect on Wednesday, is a “retreaded agreement from 2006.”

That initial deal was designed to keep Hezbollah away from the border region with Israel, overseen by the Lebanese military and the UN, but in effect it “did absolutely nothing,” he said.

This week’s deal suits both Israel and Hezbollah “in the short to medium term,” Dearlove said, adding: “The Israelis must know how much of the infrastructure of Hezbollah they’ve taken down … They haven’t taken it down completely, but maybe the Lebanese state can reassert some of its authority as the government of Lebanon and keep Hezbollah to an extent under control. We just have to wait and see what happens.”

He said the ceasefire deal will be a blow to Hezbollah’s backer Iran, leaving the latter “exposed” with one of its allies temporarily incapacitated.

But he warned that this could escalate into “direct” confrontation between Israel and Iran were the latter to launch another ballistic missile attack.


Israeli FM: ‘No justification’ for ICC to take steps against Israeli leaders

Updated 28 November 2024
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Israeli FM: ‘No justification’ for ICC to take steps against Israeli leaders

  • The foreign minister also said Israel would finish the war in Gaza when it “achieves its objectives”

PRAGUE: Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar said on Thursday that the ICC had “no justification” for issuing arrests warrants for Israeli leaders, in a joint press conference with Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky.
Saar told Reuters Israel has appealed the decision and that it sets a dangerous precedent.
The foreign minister also said Israel would finish the war in Gaza when it “achieves its objectives” of returning hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza and ensuring the Iranian-backed group no longer controls the strip. Saar said Israel does not intend to control civilian life in Gaza and that he believes peace is “inevitable” but can’t be based on “illusions.”