BEIRUT: Tahani Yassine was in her third trimester of pregnancy when she chose to return to her hometown of Beirut to deliver her baby.
Living in Equatorial Guinea with her husband and three young children, she had more faith in the Lebanese health care system.
But just a few days after her arrival in Beirut, Yassine began to regret her decision. Israel intensified its military campaign in Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah strongholds in the south, the Bekaa Valley in the east and the southern suburbs of Beirut, close to her home.
Although her area wasn’t directly hit, the strikes were unnervingly close, and the boom of Israeli warplanes breaking the sound barrier overhead filled her with fear.
Anxious for the safety of her unborn child, the 36-year-old moved to an apartment closer to hospital where she was due to deliver.
“My doctors told me that I was too far along in my pregnancy to travel. I had no choice but to stay and deliver here,” she told Reuters just hours after giving birth at Trad Hospital in central Beirut on Oct. 10.
Lying in her hospital bed, with her newborn girl nestled next to her in a crib, Yassine expressed her relief that both she and her baby were healthy — a very different experience to many expectant mothers in the escalating conflict in Lebanon.
Nicolas Baaklini, an obstetrician and gynaecologist in Beirut, says he has noticed an increase in premature births and foetal deaths since hostilities began last year.
“What has increased the most, and what was shocking to me, is the number of foetal deaths in in-utero babies who died in their mothers’ wombs,” said Baaklini, 61, who has a private clinic and also works in several Beirut hospitals.
“There are many malformations, and surprisingly, several colleagues have observed the same. When ... in one year, you have two foetal deaths in-utero, and then suddenly, in two months, you have about 15, it indicates that something is wrong,” he added.
Mothers flee their homes
Around 11,600 pregnant women remain in Lebanon, of whom around 4,000 are expected to deliver in the next three months, according to a flash appeal published by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in October.
Many of them are displaced and lack adequate shelter, nutrition and sanitation. Access to safe antenatal, post-natal, and paediatric care is increasingly difficult.
Since the war intensified in late September, the Israeli campaign has forced about 1.2 million people from their homes, according to the Lebanese government.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah militants erupted a year ago when the Iranian-backed group began launching rockets at northern Israel in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war.
Dressed in white scrubs in the neonatal intensive care unit of Trad Hospital, Baaklini stroked the tiny feet of a baby girl in one of the incubators. The baby and her twin brother had been delivered prematurely by a mother who had to evacuate her home in southern Beirut due to Israeli airstrikes.
He believed that the mother’s early contractions were partly caused the stress of the bombardments and having to flee.
He said all the ICU beds were occupied, attributing this to the intensifying bombardments.
“It is not panic that makes you give birth,” Baaklini said, as machines monitoring the premature babies beeped in the background. “It is the act of running, falling, and experiencing trauma to the abdomen that triggers contractions, leading to premature delivery.”
Under bombardment, Lebanon’s expectant mothers fear for their unborn babies
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Under bombardment, Lebanon’s expectant mothers fear for their unborn babies
- Nicolas Baaklini, an obstetrician and gynaecologist in Beirut, says he has noticed an increase in premature births and foetal deaths since hostilities began last year
Israel says it’s moving toward Lebanon ceasefire
- Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said of a ceasefire: “We haven’t finalized it yet, but we are moving forward”
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Israel is moving toward a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah but there are still issues to address, its government said on Monday, while two senior Lebanese officials voiced guarded optimism of a deal soon even as Israeli strikes pounded Lebanon.
Axios, citing an unnamed senior US official, said Israel and Lebanon had agreed to the terms of a deal, and that Israel’s security cabinet was expected to approve the deal on Tuesday.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said of a ceasefire: “We haven’t finalized it yet, but we are moving forward.” Asked for comment, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it had nothing to say about the report.
Hostilities have intensified in parallel with the diplomatic flurry: Over the weekend, Israel carried out powerful airstrikes, one of which killed at least 29 people in central Beirut — while the Iran-backed Hezbollah unleashed one of its biggest rocket salvoes yet on Sunday, firing 250 missiles.
In Beirut, Israeli airstrikes levelled more of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on Monday, sending clouds of debris billowing over the Lebanese capital.
Efforts to clinch a truce appeared to advance last week when US mediator Amos Hochstein declared significant progress after talks in Beirut before holding meetings in Israel and then returning to Washington.
“We are moving in the direction toward a deal, but there are still some issues to address,” Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said, without elaborating.
Michael Herzog, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, told Israel’s GLZ radio an agreement was close and “it could happen within days ... We just need to close the last corners,” according to a post on X by GLZ senior anchorman Efi Triger.
In Beirut, Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab said a decisive moment was approaching and expressed cautious optimism. “The balance is slightly tilted toward there being (an agreement), but by a very small degree, because a person like Netanyahu cannot be trusted,” he said in a news conference.
A second senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Beirut had not received any new Israeli demands from US mediators, who were describing the atmosphere as positive and saying “things are in progress.”
The official told Reuters a ceasefire could be clinched this week.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah spiralled into full-scale war in September when Israel went on the offensive, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.
Israel has dealt major blows to Hezbollah, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other top commanders and inflicting massive destruction in areas of Lebanon where the group holds sway.
Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border.
ENFORCEMENT
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the test for any agreement would be in the enforcement of two main points.
“The first is preventing Hezbollah from moving southward beyond the Litani (River), and the second, preventing Hezbollah from rebuilding its force and rearming in all of Lebanon,” Saar said in broadcast remarks to the Israeli parliament.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israel must press on with the war until “absolute victory.” Addressing Netanyahu on X, he said “it is not too late to stop this agreement!“
But Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter said Israel should reach an agreement in Lebanon. “If we say ‘no’ to Hezbollah being south of the Litani, we mean it,” he told journalists.
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said last week that the group had reviewed and given feedback on the US ceasefire proposal, and any truce was now in Israel’s hands.
Branded a terrorist group by the United States, the heavily armed, Shiite Muslim Hezbollah has endorsed Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri of the Shiite Amal movement to negotiate.
Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Israel’s offensive has forced more than 1 million people from their homes in Lebanon.
Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border, and the regular Lebanese army to deploy into the frontier region.
Arrest Warrant: UK would follow ‘due process’ if Netanyahu were to visit – foreign minister
- ICC issued arrest warrants on Thursday against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
- Several EU states have said they will meet commitments under the statute if needed
FIUGGI: Britain would follow due process if Benjamin Netanyahu visited the UK, foreign minister David Lammy said on Monday, when asked if London would fulfil the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister.
“We are signatories to the Rome Statute, we have always been committed to our obligations under international law and international humanitarian law,” Lammy told reporters at a G7 meeting in Italy.
“Of course, if there were to be such a visit to the UK, there would be a court process and due process would be followed in relation to those issues.”
The ICC issued the warrants on Thursday against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes against humanity.
Several EU states have said they will meet their commitments under the statute if needed, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has invited Netanyahu to visit his country, assuring him he would face no risks if he did so.
“The states that signed the Rome convention must implement the court’s decision. It’s not optional,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, said during a visit to Cyprus for a workshop of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.
Those same obligations were also binding on countries aspiring to join the EU, he said.
Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life
Istanbul: A 33-year-old Turkish man shot dead seven people in Istanbul on Sunday, including his parents, his wife and his 10-year-old son, before taking his own life, the authorities reported on Monday.
The man, who was found dead in his car shortly after the shooting, is also accused of wounding two other family members, one of them seriously, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement.
The authorities, who had put the death toll at four on Sunday evening, announced on Monday the discovery near a lake on Istanbul’s European shore of the bodies of the killer’s wife and son, as well as the lifeless body of his mother-in-law.
According to the Small Arms Survey (SAS), a Swiss research program, over 13.2 million firearms are in circulation in Turkiye, most of them illegally, for a population of around 85 million.
2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA
- The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night
Yabad: The Palestinian Authority said two Palestinians, including a teenage boy, were killed during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank village of Yabad.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night, leading to clashes during which soldiers shot dead two Palestinians.
The two dead were identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Muhammad Rabie Hamarsheh, 13, and Ahmad Mahmud Zaid, 20.
“Overnight, during an IDF (Israeli army) counterterrorism activity in the area of Yabad, two terrorists hurled explosives at IDF soldiers. The soldiers responded with fire and hits were identified,” an Israeli military source told AFP.
Last week, the Israeli army launched several raids in the West Bank city of Jenin, killing nine people, most of them Palestinian militants.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7 last year after Hamas’s attack on Israel.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 777 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 24 people in the West Bank in the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike
- The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday
- Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army on Monday said it had struck a Hezbollah command center in the downtown Beirut neighborhood of Basta in a deadly air strike at the weekend.
“The IDF (Israeli military) struck a Hezbollah command center,” the army said regarding the strike that the Lebanese health ministry said killed 29 people and wounded 67 on Saturday.
The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday, leaving a large crater, AFP journalists at the scene reported.
A senior Lebanese security source said that “a high-ranking Hezbollah officer was targeted” in the strike, without confirming whether or not the official had been killed.
Hezbollah official Amin Cherri said no leader of the Lebanese movement was targeted in Basta.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign, later sending in ground troops against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The war followed nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.
The conflict has killed at least 3,754 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September this year.
On the Israeli side, authorities say at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians have been killed.
