DUBAI: Lebanon is on the brink of another coronavirus disease (COVID-19) catastrophe, health officials warn, as the country grapples with a deepening financial crisis and political turmoil.
The small Mediterranean country, which has gone through two full-fledged lockdowns already, has seen cases gradually increase over the past month. Political leaders, meanwhile, are busy wrangling over sectarian quotas that have floundered efforts to form a government.
On Sunday, Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health registered 1,552 cases, while five people were reported to have died, bringing the total death toll to 7,943.
Before the summer season kicked off, Lebanon managed to bring down cases to less than 100 per day after implementing strict measures to stave off new infections. Coupled with its vaccine rollout, residents and officials breathed a short sigh of relief.
However, with Beirut in dire need of foreign currency amid a liquidity crunch, officials elected to loosen restrictions once again in a bid to attract free-spending tourists and expats.
As the summer season now draws to close, COVID-19 cases are on the rise again while health practitioners scramble to avoid a repeat of this year’s Christmas holiday rush.
After loosening restrictions to help capitalize on the expected holiday rush back in January, a COVID-19 surge killed over 1,000 people while a flood of cases overwhelmed hospitals, forcing the state to impose a strict lockdown devoid of any financial aid.
“It was not difficult to predict that the decision in June to ease COVID-19 restrictions, despite a highly infectious variant and a low vaccination rate in Lebanon, would lead to (a surge),” Dr. Firas Abiad, the general manager of Rafik Hariri University Hospital, tweeted Monday.
“The justification, always, is that it is a necessary evil, required to bring in much-needed fresh dollars. The consequences of this decision, particularly the loss of lives, apparently were not calculated. Even hospitals were left to prepare on their own for the wave to come,” he added.
Speaking to a local TV station Sunday, caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan warned that the “danger now lies in the decline hospitals’ readiness compared to what it was in the past.”
Hospitals, like virtually all other sectors, have been hit hard by the country’s collapse. Severe medicine shortages, electricity blackouts and mass migration of medical staff are but the tip of the problem.
A lockdown, Hasan said, will be inevitable by the end of September at the current virus incidence rate, adding that it could come when intensive care unit (ICU) occupancy hits between 70-75 percent.
According to the latest figures from the World Bank, national ICU occupancy levels currently stand at around 12 percent, while the average positivity rate reached six percent, up from one percent at the height of the lockdown measures.
The surge comes as the health care system teeters on the edge of a precipice, struggling to even keep the lights on and provide basic care for the country’s most vulnerable.
“We’re in disaster mode and total destruction,” Dr. Samer Saade, a lead emergency room (ER) physician at Hammoud Hospital University Medical Center in Sidon, told Arab News.
With less than 25 percent of the country’s residents fully vaccinated, his hospital has seen a steady rise in COVID-19 cases over the past two weeks.
“We currently have four patients in our COVID-19 ward, four in the ER and two in the ICU,” he said.
Yet the struggle, he says, is securing the necessary medication for both COVID-19 and none COVID-19 patients.
“Remdesivir, a drug used to treat coronavirus symptoms, is hard to find,” Saade said. Paracetamol, antibiotics and anesthetics have also become a rarity. “We’re running on fumes and operating on a day-to-day basis.”
The shortages have become so bad that his hospital has been forced to ration supply, refusing to admit patients who can be treated at home.
“If a COVID-19 patient is not critical, we ask them to go home,” the physician said.
Saade, who’s been practicing medicine for over two decades, sees no light at the end of the tunnel.
“Up until now, hospitals have been surviving thanks to donations from the international community following the deadly Aug. 4 blast,” he said.
These, however, are now drying up.
“We don’t know how we’ll intubate patients if we run out of anesthetics or oxygen,” Saade added.
Ravaged Lebanon on the brink of third COVID-19 surge, health officials warn
https://arab.news/bzs4x
Ravaged Lebanon on the brink of third COVID-19 surge, health officials warn
- Concern grows amid financial, political crises, as 1,552 cases registered on Sunday, and death toll reaches 7,943
- Lebanon’s crashing economy has piled pressure on hospitals, leaving them increasingly ill-equipped to face any new wave of the coronavirus
15 Turkish-backed fighters killed in north Syria clashes with Kurdish-led forces
- SDF fighters “infiltrated positions of the Turkish-backed” troops in the Aleppo countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said
- The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019
BEIRUT: At least 15 Ankara-backed Syrian fighters were killed Sunday after Kurdish-led forces infiltrated their territory in the country’s north, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who controls swathes of the country’s northeast, “infiltrated positions of the Turkish-backed” fighters in the Aleppo countryside, said the Observatory, which has a network of sources inside Syria.
“The two sides engaged in violent clashes” that killed 15 of the Ankara-backed fighters, the monitor said.
An AFP correspondent in Syria’s north said the clashes had taken place near the city of Al-Bab, where authorities said schools would be suspended on Monday due to the violence.
The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019.
It is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), viewed by Ankara as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which claimed the attack on Ankara.
Turkish troops and allied rebel factions control swathes of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of them targeting the SDF.
Israel moving towards a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, Axios reports
BEIRUT: Israel is moving towards a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon with the Hezbollah militant group, Axios reporter Barak Ravid posted on X on Sunday, citing a senior Israeli official.
A separate report from Israel's public broadcaster Kan, citing an Israeli official, said there was no green light given on an agreement in Lebanon, with issues still yet to be resolved.
Russian plane catches fire after landing in Turkiye but passengers and crew are safely evacuated
- “Eighty nine passengers and six crew members on board were safely evacuated at 9:43 p.m. (1843 GMT) and there were no injuries”
ANKARA, Turkiye: The engine of a Russian plane with 95 people on board caught fire after landing at Antalya airport in southern Turkiye on Sunday, Turkiye’s transportation ministry said. All passengers and crew were safely evacuated.
The Sukhoi Superjet 100 type aircraft run by Azimuth Airlines had taken off from Sochi and was carrying 89 passengers and six crew members, the ministry said in a statement.
The pilot made an emergency call after the aircraft landed at 9:34 p.m. local time, and airport rescue and firefighting crews quickly extinguished the fire, according to the statement.
No one was hurt, the statement said.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known.
A video of the incident posted by the aviation news website, Airport Haber, showed flames coming out from the left side of the plane as emergency crews doused the aircraft. Passengers were seen evacuating the plane through an emergency slide, some carrying belongings.
The transportation ministry said efforts were underway to remove the aircraft from the runway. Arrivals at the airport were temporarily suspended while departures were taking place from a military-run runway.
War-hit Lebanon suspends in-person classes in Beirut area till end of December
- Education minister announced “the suspension of in-person teaching” in schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut
- Suspension of in-person teaching also applies to parts of neighboring Metn, Baabda and Shouf districts starting Monday
BEIRUT: Lebanon has suspended in-person classes in the Beirut area until the end of December, the education ministry announced Sunday, citing safety concerns after a series of Israeli air strikes this week.
Education Minister Abbas Halabi announced in a statement “the suspension of in-person teaching” in schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut and parts of the neighboring Metn, Baabda and Shouf districts starting Monday “for the safety of students, educational institutions and parents, in light of the current dangerous conditions.”
Earlier on Sunday, Lebanese state media reported two Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, about an hour after the Israeli military posted evacuation calls online for parts of the Hezbollah bastion.
“Israeli warplanes launched two violent strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the Kafaat area,” the official National News Agency said.
The southern Beirut area has been repeatedly struck since September 23 when Israel intensified its air campaign also targeting Hezbollah bastions in Lebanon’s east and south. It later sent in ground troops to southern Lebanon.
Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars
- The trial opened in 2020 and Netanyahu is finally scheduled to take the stand next month after the court rejected his latest request to delay testimony on the grounds that he had been too busy overseeing the war to prepare his defense
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces legal perils at home and abroad that point to a turbulent future for the Israeli leader and could influence the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, analysts and officials say. The International Criminal Court (ICC) stunned Israel on Thursday by issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 13-month-old Gaza conflict. The bombshell came less than two weeks before Netanyahu is due to testify in a corruption trial that has dogged him for years and could end his political career if he is found guilty. He has denied any wrongdoing. While the domestic bribery trial has polarized public opinion, the prime minister has received widespread support from across the political spectrum following the ICC move, giving him a boost in troubled times.
Netanyahu has denounced the court’s decision as antisemitic and denied charges that he and Gallant targeted Gazan civilians and deliberately starved them.
“Israelis get really annoyed if they think the world is against them and rally around their leader, even if he has faced a lot of criticism,” said Yonatan Freeman, an international relations expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
“So anyone expecting that the ICC ruling will end this government, and what they see as a flawed (war) policy, is going to get the opposite,” he added.
A senior diplomat said one initial consequence was that Israel might be less likely to reach a rapid ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon or secure a deal to bring back hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
“This terrible decision has ... badly harmed the chances of a deal in Lebanon and future negotiations on the issue of the hostages,” said Ofir Akunis, Israel’s consul general in New York.
“Terrible damage has been done because these organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas ... have received backing from the ICC and thus they are likely to make the price higher because they have the support of the ICC,” he told Reuters.
While Hamas welcomed the ICC decision, there has been no indication that either it or Hezbollah see this as a chance to put pressure on Israel, which has inflicted huge losses on both groups over the past year, as well as on civilian populations.
IN THE DOCK The ICC warrants highlight the disconnect between the way the war is viewed here and how it is seen by many abroad, with Israelis focused on their own losses and convinced the nation’s army has sought to minimize civilian casualties.
Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, said the ICC move would likely harden resolve and give the war cabinet license to hit Gaza and Lebanon harder still.
“There’s a strong strand of Israeli feeling that runs deep, which says ‘if we’re being condemned for what we are doing, we might just as well go full gas’,” he told Reuters.
While Netanyahu has received wide support at home over the ICC action, the same is not true of the domestic graft case, where he is accused of bribery, breach of trust and fraud.
The trial opened in 2020 and Netanyahu is finally scheduled to take the stand next month after the court rejected his latest request to delay testimony on the grounds that he had been too busy overseeing the war to prepare his defense.
He was due to give evidence last year but the date was put back because of the war. His critics have accused him of prolonging the Gaza conflict to delay judgment day and remain in power, which he denies. Always a divisive figure in Israel, public trust in Netanyahu fell sharply in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas assault on southern Israel that caught his government off guard, cost around 1,200 lives.
Israel’s subsequent campaign has killed more than 44,000 people and displaced nearly all Gaza’s population at least once, triggering a humanitarian catastrophe, according to Gaza officials.
The prime minister has refused advice from the state attorney general to set up an independent commission into what went wrong and Israel’s subsequent conduct of the war.
He is instead looking to establish an inquiry made up only of politicians, which critics say would not provide the sort of accountability demanded by the ICC.
Popular Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth said the failure to order an independent investigation had prodded the ICC into action. “Netanyahu preferred to take the risk of arrest warrants, just as long as he did not have to form such a commission,” it wrote on Friday.
ARREST THREAT The prime minister faces a difficult future living under the shadow of an ICC warrant, joining the ranks of only a few leaders to have suffered similar humiliation, including Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic.
It also means he risks arrest if he travels to any of the court’s 124 signatory states, including most of Europe.
One place he can safely visit is the United States, which is not a member of the ICC, and Israeli leaders hope US President-elect Donald Trump will bring pressure to bear by imposing sanctions on ICC officials.
Mike Waltz, Trump’s nominee for national security adviser, has already promised tough action: “You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January,” he wrote on X on Friday. In the meantime, Israeli officials are talking to their counterparts in Western capitals, urging them to ignore the arrest warrants, as Hungary has already promised to do.
However, the charges are not going to disappear soon, if at all, meaning fellow leaders will be increasingly reluctant to have relations with Netanyahu, said Yuval Shany, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.
“In a very direct sense, there is going to be more isolation for the Israeli state going forward,” he told Reuters.
