BEIRUT: In Lebanon’s biggest public hospital, nurses are busy honing their life-saving skills as the spectre of all-out war looms, 10 months into intensifying clashes between Hezbollah and Israel over the Gaza war.
“We are in a state of readying for war,” nurse Basima Khashfi said as she gave emergency training to young nurses and other staff at the hospital in Beirut.
“We are currently training employees — not just nurses, but also administrative and security staff.
“With our current capabilities, we’re almost prepared” in case of a wider war, she told AFP.
Lebanon has been setting in motion public health emergency plans since hostilities began, relying mostly on donor funds after five years of gruelling economic crisis.
The threat of full-blown war grew after Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement vowed to avenge the killings last month, blamed on Israel, of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in south Beirut.
“We’re training to handle mass casualty incidents and to prepare for disasters or war,” said Lamis Dayekh, a 37-year-old nurse undergoing training. “If war breaks out, we’ll give everything we have.”
Growing tensions
The cross-border violence has killed nearly 600 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but including at least 131 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 23 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, army figures show.
In a building next to the hospital, where the emergency operations center is located, health ministry officials are busy typing away, making calls and monitoring news of the war in Gaza and south Lebanon on large television screens.
“This is not our first war and we have been ready every time,” said Wahida Ghalayini, who heads the center, active since hostilties began in October.
She cited a massive 2020 Beirut port explosion, Hezbollah and Israel’s 2006 conflict and Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.
The health ministry’s plan includes a helpline for those already displaced by war, an assessment of hospital needs, disaster training for staff and a mental health module.
The emergency room coordinates with rescue teams and hospitals in Lebanon’s south.
The plan prioritizes hospitals based on their location. The “red zone,” at high risk of Israeli strikes, comprises Hezbollah’s strongholds in the country’s south, east and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
But despite Lebanon’s long history of civil unrest and disasters, the public health sector now faces an economic crisis that has drained state coffers, forcing it to rely on aid.
Calls for aid
“We need lots of medical supplies, fuel, oxygen... the Lebanese state has a financial and economic problem,” said Ghalayini.
The state electricity provider barely produces power, so residents rely on expensive private generators and solar panels.
Most medical facilities depend on solar power during the day, she said, pointing to panels atop the adjacent hospital’s roof and parking lot.
Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said the country had enough drugs and medical supplies to last at least four months in case of a wider war.
“Efforts to increase readiness follow the (Israeli) enemy entity’s threat of expanding its aggression,” Abiad said in a statement.
Last month’s strike that killed a top Hezbollah commander targeted a densely packed residential area, killing five civilians and wounding scores more.
It tested the readiness of Beirut hospitals in the high-risk Hezbollah stronghold, Ghalayini told AFP.
As Israel threatens full-scale war, Lebanon is also looking to health workers in Gaza for emergency planning strategies, she said.
“We are observing the Gaza emergency center... to learn from them,” she said, pointing at television footage of bloodied patients at a hospital in Gaza, where the death toll has sparked mounting concerns.
For 25-year-old nurse Mohamed Hakla, the prospect of war is frightening but “our job is to help others. I will not deprive people of this (help) because of fear.”
Bracing for war: Lebanese hospitals ready emergency plans
https://arab.news/cxuc9
Bracing for war: Lebanese hospitals ready emergency plans
- Lebanon has been setting in motion public health emergency plans since hostilities began
Israel’s attorney general tells Netanyahu to reexamine extremist security minister’s role
- National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir criticized for interfering in police matters
JERUSALEM, Nov 14 : Israel’s Attorney General told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reevaluate the tenure of his far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, citing his apparent interference in police matters, Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Thursday.
The news channel published a copy of a letter written by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara in which she described instances of “illegitimate interventions” in which Ben-Gvir, who is tasked with setting general policy, gave operational instructions that threaten the police’s apolitical status.
“The concern is that the government’s silence will be interpreted as support for the minister’s behavior,” the letter said.
Officials at the Justice Ministry could not be reached for comment and there was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office.
Ben-Gvir, who heads a small ultra-nationalist party in Netanyahu’s coalition, wrote on social media after the letter was published: “The attempted coup by (the Attorney General) has begun. The only dismissal that needs to happen is that of the Attorney General.”
Israeli forces demolish Palestinian Al-Bustan community center in Jerusalem
- Al-Bustan Association functioned as a primary community center in which Silwan’s youth and families ran cultural and social activities
LONDON: Israeli forces demolished the office of the Palestinian Al-Bustan Association in occupied East Jerusalem’s neighborhood of Silwan, whose residents are under threat of Israeli eviction orders.
The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Culture condemned on Thursday the demolition of Al-Bustan by Israeli bulldozers and a military police force.
The ministry said that “(Israeli) occupation’s arrogant practices against cultural and community institutions in Palestine, and specifically in Jerusalem, are targeting the Palestinian identity, in an attempt to obliterate it.”
Founded in 2004, the Al-Bustan Association functioned as a primary community center in which Silwan’s youth and families ran cultural and social activities alongside hosting meetings for diplomatic delegations and Western journalists who came to learn about controversial Israeli policies in the area.
Al-Bustan said in a statement that it served 1,500 people in Silwan, most of them children, who enrolled in educational, cultural and artistic workshops. In addition to the Al-Bustan office, Israeli forces also demolished a home in the neighborhood belonging to the Al-Qadi family.
Located less than a mile from Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem’s southern ancient wall, Silwan has a population of 65,000 Palestinians, some of them under threat of Israeli eviction orders.
In past years, Israeli authorities have been carrying out archaeological digging under Palestinian homes in Silwan, resulting in damage to these buildings, in search of the three-millennial “City of David.”
Israeli strike kills 12 after hitting civil defense center in Lebanon’s Baalbek, governor tells Reuters
- Eight others, including five women, were also killed and 27 wounded in another Israeli attack
CAIRO: An Israeli strike killed 12 people after it hit a civil defense center in Lebanon’s city of Baalbek on Thursday, the regional governor told Reuters adding that rescue operations were ongoing.
Eight others, including five women, were also killed and 27 wounded in another Israeli attack on the Lebanese city, health ministry reported on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Lebanese civil defense official Samir Chakia said: “The Civil Defense Center in Baalbek has been targeted, five Civil Defense rescuers were killed.”
Bachir Khodr the regional governor said more than 20 rescuers had been at the facility at the time of the strike.
‘A symbol of resilience’ — workers in Iraq complete reconstruction of famous Mosul minaret
- Workers complete reconstruction of 12th-century minaret of Al-Nuri Mosque
- Tower and mosque were blown by Daesh extremists in 2017
High above the narrow streets and low-rise buildings of Mosul’s old city, beaming workers hoist an Iraqi flag into the sky atop one of the nation’s most famous symbols of resilience.
Perched precariously on scaffolding in high-vis jackets and hard hats, the workers celebrate a milestone in Iraq’s recovery from the traumatic destruction and bloodshed that once engulfed the city.
On Wednesday, the workers placed the last brick that marked the completed reconstruction of the 12th-century minaret of Al-Nuri Mosque. The landmark was destroyed by Daesh in June 2017 shortly before Iraqi forces drove the extremist group from the city.
Known as Al-Hadba, or “the hunchback,” the 45-meter-tall minaret, which famously leant to one side, dominated the Mosul skyline for centuries. The tower has been painstakingly rebuilt as part of a UNESCO project, matching the traditional stone and brick masonry and incorporating the famous lean.
“Today UNESCO celebrates a landmark achievement,” the UN cultural agency’s Iraq office said. “The completion of the shaft of the Al-Hadba Minaret marks a new milestone in the revival of the city, with and for the people of Mosul.
“UNESCO is grateful for the incredible teamwork that made this vision a reality. Together, we’ve created a powerful symbol of resilience, a true testament to international cooperation. Thank you to everyone involved in this journey.”
The restoration of the mosque is part of UNESCO’s Revive the Spirit of Mosul project, which includes the rebuilding of two churches and other historic sites. The UAE donated $50 million to the project and UNESCO said that the overall Al-Nuri Mosque complex restoration will be finished by the end of the year.
UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay celebrated the completion of the minaret by posting “We did it!” on social media site X.
She thanked donors, national and local authorities in Iraq and the experts and professionals, “many of whom are Moslawis,” who worked to rebuild the minaret.
“Can’t wait to return to Mosul to celebrate the full completion of our work,” she said.
The Al-Nuri mosque was built in the second half of the 12th century by the Seljuk ruler Nur Al-Din.
After Daesh seized control of large parts of Iraq in 2014, the group’s leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, declared the establishment of its so-called caliphate from inside the mosque.
Three years later, the extremists detonated explosives to destroy the mosque and minaret as Iraqi forces battled to expel them from the city. Thousands of civilians were killed in the fighting and much of Mosul was left in ruins.
US hands Lebanon draft truce proposal -two political sources
- The US has sought to broker a ceasefire that would end hostilities between its ally Israel and Hezbollah
BEIRUT: The US ambassador to Lebanon submitted a draft truce proposal to Lebanon’s speaker of parliament Nabih Berri on Thursday to halt fighting between armed group Hezbollah and Israel, two political sources told Reuters, without revealing details.
The US has sought to broker a ceasefire that would end hostilities between its ally Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, but efforts have yet to yield a result. Israel launched a stepped-up air and ground campaign in late September after cross-border clashes in parallel with the Gaza war.
