Exodus of doctors and health workers leave sick and ailing Syrians out on a limb

Sanctions, isolation, earthquakes and a grinding civil war have devastated Syria’s health system, leaving medical personnel underresourced and overwhelmed, forcing many to leave for Europe. (AFP)
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Updated 13 June 2024
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Exodus of doctors and health workers leave sick and ailing Syrians out on a limb

  • Sanctions, isolation, earthquakes and a grinding civil war have devastated Syria’s health system
  • Overwhelmed, under-resourced, and often unpaid, medical personnel are leaving for Europe in droves 

LONDON: More than a decade of civil war, economic sanctions, regional tensions, and a devastating earthquake have left Syria’s healthcare system in tatters and, according to a top World Health Organization official, forgotten by the international community.

Hanan Balkhy, WHO’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said last week that almost half of Syria’s health workers had fled the war-torn country. She called for innovative approaches to halt the exodus of Syrian medical staff abroad.

In an interview with the AFP news agency, she said that young doctors needed to be offered better prospects than practicing “fourth-century” medicine amid dire conditions, “where you cauterize people and send them on their merry way.”




An injured man receives emergency treatment at the Samez hospital following bombardment by pro Syrian regime forces in rebel-held northwestern city of Idlib on October 6, 2023. (AFP)

The International Rescue Committee highlighted in a 2021 report that about 70 percent of the medical workforce had fled the country, leaving one doctor for every 10,000 people.

Balkhy told AFP that in addition to earning extremely low wages, if any at all, Syria’s medical staff faced a severe shortage of resources and equipment, including operating rooms, sterilization units, and medications.

However, according to Dr. Zaher Sahloul, a Syrian-American critical care specialist and president of the medical NGO MedGlobal, every young Syrian physician he knows either plans to or dreams of leaving Syria and pursuing opportunities in other countries, “especially Germany, other European nations, or the US.”

“The flight is across the board and not related to war or conflict,” he told Arab News.

According to data released by the German Medical Association earlier this year, 6,120 Syrian doctors work in Germany without holding a German passport. These doctors account for 10 percent of the EU country’s foreign medical staff.

INNUMBERS

• 70 percent Proportion of Syria’s medical workforce that fled the country, leaving one doctor for every 10,000 people. (IRC, 2021)

• 6,120 Number of Syrian doctors working in Germany, accounting for 10 percent of the country’s foreign medical staff. (GMA, 2024)

• 65 percent Proportion of Syria’s hospitals deemed fully operational, making access to healthcare heavily constrained. (WHO, 2024)

• $80 million Funding needed by the WHO for 2024 to ensure access to health services and prevent further deterioration in Syria.

Balkhy said many young doctors in Syria are learning the German language on the side “so that they can be ready to jump,” which she believes is a significant concern for the region and its population.

But she also believes that finding creative solutions may encourage Syrian doctors to stay or return to their country — a choice she says many would make “willingly” with access to adequate support.




A man stands at the entrance of Adnan Kiwan hospital that was hit during reported airstrikes by pro-regime forces in the town of Kansafrah, in the south of Syria's Idlib province on November 25, 2019. The patients of the hospital were reportedly evacuated shortly before the strike took place. (AFP/File)

Sahloul says the main reasons behind the exodus of medical workers “are the economic collapse, hyperinflation, corruption, the collapse of the healthcare system due to long years of war, the regime’s policies of destroying what is left and pushing away anyone who wants to leave, and the lack of a viable political solution.”

Following a brief visit to the country between May 11 and 16, WHO’s Balkhy described the healthcare situation as “catastrophic,” warning that the number of people in need is “staggering, and pockets of critical vulnerabilities persist in many parts of the country.”

In a statement published on May 18, the WHO official wrote that intensifying tensions in the region, including the Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip and the Iran-Israel shadow war, have exacerbated this catastrophic situation.

The civil war has forced more than 14 million Syrians to flee their homes and seek refuge both within the country and beyond its borders. Among them, more than 7.2 million remain internally displaced, while about 70 percent of the population needs humanitarian assistance, according to UN figures.




Dr. Hanan Balkhy, WHO’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean. (Supplied)

Balkhy said in her statement that she was “extremely alarmed” by the increasing malnutrition rates among children under 5 and nursing mothers as a result of rising poverty.

The UN warned last year that 90 percent of Syria’s population lived below the poverty line, with millions facing a reduction in food rations due to a shortfall in funding for aid agencies.

According to the WHO regional director, almost three-quarters of all deaths in Syria are caused by chronic conditions, including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and mental health disorders, many of which are going untreated.

She also noted the number of burn injuries in Syria has been disproportionately high, especially among children, as people, deprived of traditional means of heating and cooking, burn unsuitable materials, such as tires, plastics, and fabrics.




In this picture taken on May 2, 2023, male patients receive treatment at the Haematology and Oncology department run by the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) at Idlib Central Hospital in the rebel-held northwestern Syrian city.(AFP/File)

Fumes produced by burning these substances also result in respiratory issues.

With just 65 percent of hospitals and 62 percent of primary healthcare centers fully operational, combined with a severe shortage of essential medicines and medical equipment, access to healthcare is constrained.

Before the war erupted in 2011, Syria’s pharmaceutical industry covered about 90 percent of the national needs of medicines, according to a 2010 paper by academics from the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Romania.

In 2013, WHO reported that the country’s local drug production plunged after the fighting caused substantial damage to pharmaceutical plants in the governorates of Aleppo and rural Damascus.




A picture taken on February 21, 2018 shows a view through the wall of a destroyed hospital's pharmacy after it was hit in a regime air strike in the rebel-held enclave of Hamouria in Ghouta near Damascus. (AFP/File)

Poverty also creates significant barriers to accessing medical services and affording essential medicines, said Balkhy.

What concerned her most was “the fact that almost half of the health workforce, which forms the backbone of any health system, has left the country.”

An investigation by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism last year found that although the exact number of Syrian physicians who left the country remains unknown, the true extent of this exodus is larger than the NGOs and the Syrian government have reported.

“Retaining a skilled health workforce and ensuring sufficient medical supplies in Syria and across the region is a key priority,” said Balkhy.




Members of the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, carry the body of a woman recovered from the rubble of a building at the site of a reported airstrike on the rebel-held town of Ariha in the northern countryside of Syria's Idlib province early on January 30, 2020. (AFP/File)

She proposed engaging young Syrian physicians on research projects with a pathway to publishing so they can “feel that they’re doing something worthwhile,” in addition to ensuring they “at least have the equipment” to perform operations.

For Sahloul of MedGlobal, fostering a belief in a brighter future is essential to retaining both new and seasoned doctors.

“What will encourage young and old doctors to stay in Syria is believing in a better future — a new leadership that respects its human capital,” he said.

Sahloul said that international and Arab actors need to devote more attention to finding a genuine solution to the Syrian conflict — “one that ensures respect for human rights and dignity, and focuses on rebuilding.”




A man and woman carry malnourished children at a camp for Syrians displaced by conflict near the town of Deir al-Ballut by Syria's border with Turkey in the Afrin region in the northwest of the rebel-held side of the Aleppo province on September 28, 2020. (AFP/File)

He added: “The current Arab normalization with the regime is flawed because it gives no hope for any meaningful change.”

Sahloul said normalization’s priorities, including refugee repatriation, curbing the manufacture of and trade in the amphetamine drug Captagon, and limiting Iran’s influence, “are not the most important priorities to the young graduates and aspiring doctors in Syria.”

Balkhy emphasized that the decline in humanitarian funding for Syria was a “central and troubling concern.” 

For instance, Al-Hol camp in Syria’s northeast — home to the wives and children of Daesh militants captured in 2019 — has grappled with many significant challenges since funding shortages forced WHO to halt medical referrals, prompting camp administrators to revoke its access.

Talks with donors in the capital Damascus during her five-day visit revealed that while they acknowledge the extent of gaps and needs, they are hampered by competing regional and global agendas.

Medecins Sans Frontieres warned on April 29 that the severe lack of funding for a vital WHO-funded medical referral system in 11 camps in northeast Syria “will lead to a marked increase in the number of preventable deaths.”

WHO said in March that it required $80 million in funding for the year 2024 to ensure the continuity, quality, and accessibility of health services and infrastructure in Syria, and to prevent a further deterioration of the already precarious situation.


 


Yemen’s Houthis mourn slain Hezbollah chief, say resistance will not be broken

Updated 6 sec ago
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Yemen’s Houthis mourn slain Hezbollah chief, say resistance will not be broken

“The resistance will not be broken,” the group said
Both Hezbollah and the Houthis are part of the Axis of Resistance

CAIRO: The Houthi movement in Yemen on Saturday mourned the death of Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, its ally in an Iran-backed alliance opposing Israel, in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut.
“The resistance will not be broken, and the Jihadist spirit of the Mujahideen brothers in Lebanon and on all fronts of support will grow stronger and bigger,” the group said in a statement.
Hezbollah confirmed Nasrallah’s killing after the Israeli military said it had eliminated him in an airstrike in Beirut on Friday.
Both Hezbollah and the Houthis are part of the Axis of Resistance, an alliance built up over years of Iranian support against Israel and US influence in the Middle East.
The Houthis have launched repeated drone and missile strikes on ships they say are affiliated to Israel, in the crucial shipping channels of the Red Sea, the Bab Al-Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden since November to show their support for Palestinians in the Gaza war.
The group, which controls northern Yemen, also fired missiles and drones at Israel repeatedly, some of which targeted central Israel for the first time.

Lebanese health minister says 11 killed, 108 injured on Friday

Updated 35 min 59 sec ago
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Lebanese health minister says 11 killed, 108 injured on Friday

Beirut: A new Israeli strike hit a building in Hezbollah’s south Beirut bastion Saturday, a Lebanese security official told AFP, after Israel earlier said it killed group leader Hassan Nasrallah during intense bombardment.
“A new Israeli strike targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs,” the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
The strike hit the second and third floors of a building, the official said.
While Lebanese health minister said that 11 killed and 108 injured on Friday in Israeli strikes across Lebanon.
In addition to bombardment on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon’s south and east, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported Saturday Israeli strikes outside the group’s traditional bastions, including in the Keserwan area north of Beirut.
Earlier Saturday, Israel’s military announced Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut the previous night, but there was no confirmation from the Lebanese armed group.
Hezbollah began firing into Israel one day after Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
But Israel has in recent days shifted the focus of its operation from Gaza to Lebanon, where heavy bombing has killed hundreds and displaced around 118,000.
Continuing strikes on both sides of the border
On Saturday morning, the Israeli military carried out more than 140 airstrikes in southern Beirut and eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, including targeting a storage facility for anti-ship missiles in Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh. Israel said the missiles were stored underground beneath civilian apartment buildings. Hezbollah launched dozens of projectiles across northern and central Israel and deep into the Israel-occupied West Bank, damaging some buildings in the northern town of Safed.
In Beirut’s southern suburbs, smoke rose and the streets were empty after the area was pummeled overnight by heavy Israeli airstrikes. Shelters set up in the city center for displaced people were overflowing. Many families slept in public squares and beaches or in their cars. On the roads leading to the mountains above the capital, hundreds of people could be seen making an exodus on foot, holding infants and whatever belongings they could carry.
At least 720 people have been killed in Lebanon over the past week from Israeli airstrikes, according to the Health Ministry.


Hamas says Nasrallah ‘assassination’ will only strengthen resistance

Updated 5 min 21 sec ago
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Hamas says Nasrallah ‘assassination’ will only strengthen resistance

  • “Crimes and assassination by the occupation will only increase the determination and the insistence of the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon to go forward,” Hamas said
  • His death marks a heavy blow to Hezbollah as it reels from an escalating campaign of Israeli attacks

CAIRO: Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Saturday it mourned Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah following his killing in an Israeli airstrike, saying his death would only fuel the fight against Israel.
“Crimes and assassination by the occupation will only increase the determination and the insistence of the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon to go forward with all their might, bravery and pride on the footsteps of the martyrs...and pursue the path of resistance until victory and the dismissal of the occupation,” Hamas said in a statement.
His death marks a heavy blow to Hezbollah as it reels from an escalating campaign of Israeli attacks. It is also a huge blow to Iran, given the major role he has played in the Tehran-backed regional “Axis of Resistance.”
The ‘Axis of Resistance’ refers to groups including Hezbollah that are backed by Iran and have been waging attacks on Israel since war erupted between their ally Hamas and Israel on Oct. 7.
“We reaffirm our absolute solidarity and standing with the brothers in Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, who are taking part in the battle of the Al-Aqsa Flood to defend Al-Aqsa mosque, alongside our people and our resistance,” Hamas added.
Islamic Jihad, another Iranian-backed Palestinian group, said in a statement: “Sooner or later, the resistance forces in Lebanon, Palestine, and the region will make the enemy pay the price of its crimes, and taste defeat for what its sinful hands have done.”
Gaza has a population of 2.3 million people, most of whom have been internally displaced by the war, which has killed 41,500 of them, according to Gaza health authorities.
Israel and Hamas have been fighting since gunmen from the Palestinian militant group stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing some 250 hostages, by Israeli tallies.
Asked how Nasrallah’s death would affect the fight against Israel, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters: “The assassination of Hassan Nasrallah will not break the will of the resistance and we are confident that the occupation will lose the battle,” said Abu Zuhri.


Who is Hezbollah: powerful Lebanese armed group with regional role

Updated 28 September 2024
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Who is Hezbollah: powerful Lebanese armed group with regional role

  • Group’s confirmation on Saturday of its leader’s killing marks an unprecedented blow
  • Since July Israel has also killed several top Hezbollah commanders in strikes on south Beirut

Beirut:Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement has been a powerful domestic and regional force, politically and militarily, but the group’s confirmation on Saturday of its leader’s killing marks an unprecedented blow.
Financed and armed by Iran, Hezbollah is the most prominent actor in the Axis of Resistance — regional pro-Tehran armed groups opposed to Israel. They also include Palestinian militants Hamas, Iraqi movements and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Since the day after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that triggered war in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah launched cross-border rocket attacks from Lebanon seeking to tie up Israeli military resources in what it calls “support” for Hamas.
These exchanges escalated over the past week, and on Monday Israeli air raids killed more than 550 people, Lebanon’s health ministry said, in the deadliest day of violence since Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war.
The raids targeted Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut, the south of Lebanon, and in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa area.
The air assault followed pager and walkie-talkie blasts that targeted operatives of Hezbollah, which blamed Israel, killing almost 40 people and wounding nearly 3,000.
Since July Israel has also killed several top Hezbollah commanders in strikes on south Beirut. These included Fuad Shukr, a key adviser to Nasrallah, and Ibrahim Aqil, head of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force.
On Saturday Israel’s military said it had killed Nasrallah in an air strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, and the movement later confirmed his death.
AFP details Hezbollah’s influence here:
Hezbollah, whose name means “Party of God” in Arabic, was founded during the Lebanese civil war after Israel besieged the capital Beirut in 1982. The group has since become a powerful domestic political player.
Created at the initiative of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Shiite Muslim movement gained its moniker as “the Resistance” by fighting Israeli troops who occupied southern Lebanon until 2000.
Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in July-August 2006 that killed about 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 in Israel, mostly soldiers, after the group kidnapped two Israeli troops in a cross-border raid.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 ended that conflict and called for the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers to be the only armed forces deployed in south Lebanon.
But Hezbollah holds sway in the area, enjoying broad support and where experts say it likely has a network of underground tunnels.
On August 16, the group released a video showing what appeared to be underground tunnels and large missile launchers, without revealing their location.
The group also has a strong presence in the Bekaa valley near Syria.
Hezbollah has bolstered its powerful arsenal, including with guided missiles, and says it can count on more than 100,000 fighters, though analysts have cited figures of around 50,000.
Nasrallah was elected secretary-general in 1992 after Israel assassinated his predecessor. He rarely appeared in public.
Hezbollah is a major actor in the Middle East, where it has supported and trained Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Houthis since October have claimed attacks on Israel and what they say are Israeli-linked shipping interests in the Red Sea area.
Hezbollah is also present in Syria, where many of its members have fought in support of President Bashar Assad in his country’s civil war, with Damascus also an ally of Tehran.
Domestically, Hezbollah is the only Lebanese faction to have retained its weapons after the country’s civil war, doing so in the name of “resistance” against Israel.
It is now an important political player, though detractors have accused it of being a “state within a state.”
Political deadlock between Hezbollah allies and their adversaries since late 2022 has prevented the election of a new president, leaving Lebanon essentially leaderless during a years-long economic meltdown.
Founded in the Bekaa Valley, Hezbollah has become predominant in all Shiite Muslim areas of Lebanon. Its religious and financial institutions are based in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
The movement runs an extensive social services network, complete with schools, hospitals, emergency responders and a wide range of charitable organizations serving its supporters.
Its trademark yellow flags and huge portraits of the bespectacled, bushy-bearded Nasrallah adorn areas of the country where the movement is popular.
The United States has considered Hezbollah a “terrorist” organization for years. The European Union applies the classification to the group’s armed wing.
A predecessor of Hezbollah claimed the 1983 US embassy bombing in Beirut that killed 63 people, and double-bombings that killed more than 200 US Marines as well as 58 French soldiers the same year.
In 2022, a UN-backed court sentenced two Hezbollah members in absentia to life imprisonment for a Beirut bombing in 2005 that killed Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafic Hariri.


Hezbollah confirms Hassan Nasrallah dead in Beirut strike

Updated 30 min 53 sec ago
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Hezbollah confirms Hassan Nasrallah dead in Beirut strike

  • Israel army says struck more than 140 Hezbollah targets ‘since last night’
  • Hamas group says Nasrallah’s killing will only strengthen the resistance

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: Lebanon’s Hezbollah confirmed on Saturday that its leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed and vowed to continue the battle against Israel, hours after the Israeli military announced his death in a strike in Beirut on Friday.
The military said that it carried out a precise airstrike while Hezbollah leadership met at their headquarters in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut.
Ali Karki, the Commander of Hezbollah’s Southern Front, and additional Hezbollah commanders, were also killed in the attack, the Israeli military said. The Lebanese Health Ministry said that 6 people were killed and 91 injured in the strikes on Friday, which leveled six apartment buildings.
Israel’s military said Saturday that “most” senior leaders of Hezbollah had been killed, after it announced the death of Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the group, which has not provided confirmation.
“Most of the senior leaders of Hezbollah have been eliminated,” military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told an online press briefing.
Nasrallah has lead Hezbollah for more than three decades. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.
Israel maintained a heavy barrage of airstrikes against Hezbollah on Saturday, as Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets toward Israel.
The Israeli military said it was mobilizing additional reserve soldiers as tensions escalate with Lebanon.
The military said Saturday morning it was activating three battalions of reserve soldiers, after earlier sending two brigades to northern Israel earlier in the week to train for a possible ground invasion.
Hezbollah also said that it had targeted Israeli sites on Saturday including Rosh Pina in the north with missiles in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese cities, villages and civilians.
In Beirut’s southern suburbs, smoke rose and the streets were empty after the area was pummeled overnight by heavy Israeli airstrikes. Shelters set up in the city center for displaced people were overflowing. Many families slept in public squares and beaches or in their cars. On the roads leading to the mountains above the capital, hundreds of people could be seen making an exodus on foot, holding infants and whatever belongings they could carry.
At least six people were killed and 91 were wounded in the strikes against the Hezbollah on Friday, Lebanon’s health ministry said. It was the biggest blast to hit the Lebanese capital in the past year and appeared likely to push the escalating conflict closer to full-fledged war. At least 720 people have been killed in Lebanon during the week, according to the Health Ministry.
Reuters journalists heard more than 20 airstrikes in Beirut before dawn on Saturday and more after sunrise. Smoke could be seen rising over the city’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs, known as the Dahiyeh.
Thousands of people have fled the area since Friday’s attack, congregating in squares, parks and sidewalks in downtown Beirut and seaside areas.
“They want to destroy Dahiyeh, they want to destroy all of us,” said Sari, a man in his 30s who gave only his first name, referring to the suburb he had fled after an Israeli evacuation order. Nearby, the newly displaced in Beirut’s Martyrs Square rolled mats onto the ground to try to sleep.
The Israeli military said a missile fired at central Israel on Saturday had struck an open area. Earlier, the military said about 10 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory and that some had been intercepted.
The Israeli military also said it was striking Hezbollah targets in the Bekaa Valley, a region of eastern Lebanon at the Syrian border that it has pounded over the last week.
Israel’s five hours of continuous strikes on Beirut early on Saturday followed Friday’s attack, by far the most powerful by Israel on the city during the conflict with Hezbollah that has played out in parallel to the Gaza war for nearly a year.
The escalation has sharply increased fears the conflict could spiral out of control, potentially drawing in Iran, Hezbollah’s principal backer, as well as the United States.
There was no immediate confirmation of Nasrallah’s fate after Friday’s heavy strikes, but a source close to Hezbollah told Reuters he was not reachable.
“I think it’s too early to say... Sometimes they hide the fact when we succeed,” the Israeli official told reporters when asked if the strike on Friday had killed Nasrallah.
Earlier, a source close to Hezbollah told Reuters that Nasrallah was alive. Iran’s Tasnim news agency also reported he was safe. A senior Iranian security official told Reuters that Tehran was checking his status.
Israel’s attacks in Lebanon have widened to new areas this week. On Saturday, an airstrike hit the Lebanese mountain town of Bhamdoun, southeast of Beirut, Lebanese lawmaker for the area Mark Daou told Reuters.
The mayor of Bhamdoun, Walid Khayrallah, told Reuters the strike hit a large empty lot and did not cause any casualties.
Death toll rises
Hours before the latest barrage, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the United Nations that his country had a right to continue the campaign.
“As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safely,” he said.
Several delegations walked out as Netanyahu approached the lectern. He later cut short his New York trip to return to Israel.
Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television reported seven buildings were destroyed.
Hours later, the Israeli military told residents in parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs to evacuate as it targeted missile launchers and weapons storage sites it said were under civilian housing.
Hezbollah denied any weapons or arms depots were located in buildings that were hit in the Beirut suburbs, the group’s media office said in a statement.
Alaa Al-Din Saeed, a resident of a neighborhood that Israel identified as a target, told Reuters he was fleeing with his wife and three children.
“We found out on the television. There was a huge commotion in the neighborhood,” he said. The family grabbed clothes, identification papers and some cash but were stuck in traffic with others trying to flee.
“We’re going to the mountains. We’ll see how to spend the night — and tomorrow we’ll see what we can do.”
Around 100,000 people in Lebanon have been displaced this week, increasing the number uprooted in the country to well over 200,000.
Israel’s government has said that returning some 70,000 Israeli evacuees to their homes is a war aim.
Fear the fighting will spread
Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and missiles against targets in Israel, including Tel Aviv. The group said it fired rockets on Friday at the northern Israeli city of Safed, where a woman was treated for minor injuries.
Israel’s air defense systems have ensured the damage has so far been minimal.
Iran, which said Friday’s attack crossed “red lines,” accused Israel of using US-made “bunker-busting” bombs.
At the UN, where the annual General Assembly met this week, the intensification prompted expressions of concern including by France, which with the US has proposed a 21-day ceasefire.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a New York press conference: “We believe the way forward is through diplomacy, not conflict... We will continue to work intentionally with all parties to urge them to choose that course.”
Hezbollah opened the latest bout in a decades-long conflict with a missile barrage against Israel immediately following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza last year.