In Beirut It has become a privilege to know your dead. It’s a new kind of luck power confirm the loss of your loved one with a body to bury. Because, three days after the largest attack suffered by the Lebanese capital in decades, there are dozens of families looking for their loved ones. The brutality of the impact in residential areas and without prior warning devastated, for the moment, 357 lives and caused more than 1,150 injuries. “Some of the victims arrived in pieces distributed in several plastic bags, which contained different parts of the body,” he says. Mohammad Chaitohead of nursing Rafic Hariri University Hospital. Others have not yet arrived, neither whole nor divided, because their corpses are still under the rubble of their houses.
Meanwhile, health personnel continue to work against the clock, although not without fear. Some of Beirut’s hospitals, such as the Rafic Hariri or the Zahraa hospital, have been in areas under forced evacuation orders from the Israeli Army. In their rooms and intensive care units, many of the injured of the attacks on tragic Wednesday. One of the bombings took place in the vicinity of these medical centers, just 600 meters from each other. “We are not going to leavewe are going to continue working with the wounded and the sick as we have been doing since the first day of the war,” acknowledges Khalil, who works in the Zahraa hospitalalthough he prefers not to share his full name with this newspaper.
“At full capacity”
At the doors of both hospitals, exhausted families. Men and women sit on the curb and hold their heads with their hands. His gaze is lost in the horizon, while his mind travels far from here. Maybe to life before Black Wednesday. “My father was in his flower shop as always when there was the attack,” acknowledges Mariam, whose family is originally from southern Lebanon but lives in Beirut. Specifically, in the neighborhood of Corniche al Mazraaa commercial area that this Wednesday suffered its hardest blow.
The brutality of the four explosives that hit the warehouse of the roastery in front of the flower shop shook his body. “The pieces of the building hit him, and now your business is completely destroyed“, she tells EL PERIÓDICO, while showing a video of the fresh flowers that filled her days.
“He has all his ribs broken, internal bleeding in his brain and he can’t breathe on his own, so he’s unconscious on a respirator but he’s going to be fine.”
“When Rafic Hariri arrived at the hospital, they couldn’t take him to intensive care even if he needed it, because the unit was at full capacity and there was no place for him,” says Mariam. After several panic attacks and his condition worsening, they considered take him to another hospitalbut they were finally able to move him to intensive care. “He has all his ribs broken, one internal bleeding in the brain and he cannot breathe on his own, so he is unconscious connected to a respirator,” he explains. “But he is going to be fine,” he affirms with a fortitude closer to faith than reality.
The suffering of this family, like that of so many others, worsened on Thursday when the Israeli Army included the barrio beirutí de Jnahoutside the southern suburbs of Beirut, in their forced eviction orders. “The security situation prevented us from coming, but I came anyway because his condition worsened,” Mariam adds.
WHO guarantees
The World Health Organization (WHO) raised the alarm and, a day later, announced that it had received guarantees that the two hospitals would not be targets of the attacks. “You can never be entirely sure“says Chaito, the head of nursing at Rafic Hariri, Lebanon’s largest public hospital. Right now, they have between 180 and 220 patients. “We are prepared for all scenarios: for evacuation, or to be the target of an Israeli bombing,” he acknowledges.
During the Israeli military offensive of 2024, which lasted two months, they experienced something similar with attacks in the vicinity of the hospitalbut they were never under a forced eviction order. “Now we have more experience, we have worked on our weaknesses, but we are also more afraid“he adds.
“Now we have more experience than in the 2024 war, we have worked on our weaknesses, but we are also more afraid”
Rafic Hariri also became from the first moment the meeting point for the despair of many families. “Many people arrived, living and dead, who we could not identify“, says Chaito. “Some families recognized their loved ones for clothes or shoes that they carried, but there is still people in the morgue who have not been able to be identified and, therefore, the laboratory is comparing the ADN of their relatives with the aim of recognizing these people,” he explains, pointing out that “they are starting with the loose body parts.
The process to find missing people can take time weeks. The Israeli attacks were so powerful that they left many bodies unrecognizable, their too deformed faces and others in pieces. “Both the fatalities and the injured were different: women, children, the elderly, and men,” adds Chaito.
Supply shortages
This tragedy has no precedent whatsoever. The Israeli Army launched 160 bombs in 10 minutes through different parts of Lebanese territory. The current death toll has already surpassed the 218 people who died in the Beirut port explosion in 2020, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, which also devastated hospitals. The Lebanese Ministry of Health affirms that at least 110 children, women and elderly They died this Wednesday throughout the country.
that day Olaoriginally from southern Lebanon but living in Jnah, survived the third Israeli attack in her life. “From my house only the bathroom and kitchen remainso I sleep in the car at night and spend the day in the hospital compound, because it is safer,” he says with his body intact in the Rafic Hariri parking lot.
“Only the bathroom and kitchen remain in my house, so I sleep in the car at night and spend the day on the hospital grounds, because it is safer”
“During the 2024 attack, the house I was in collapsed due to the bombing and four of the children I was taking care of died, but I had to pull two others out from under the rubble myself.“, she tells this newspaper. “I may die tomorrow,” admits Ola, reconciled with the idea of losing her life and joining those little ones who were like her children. Another of the great fears of the Lebanese health system, whose ambulances, hospitals and workers are being targeted by Israeli violence, is the shortage of supplies.
The WHO stated that some hospitals could run out in a matter of days no medical kits for life-saving trauma, as supplies are nearly depleted by the many victims of the large-scale attacks. At Rafic Hariri, for the moment, they have medical supplies. “But we do have certain shortage of medical equipment: monitors, or respirators”, like those that keep Mariam’s father alive, Chaito concludes.
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