The World Health Organization stated Friday that since Israel’s war in Gaza began after the October 7 attacks last year, about 230 healthcare workers had died in Lebanon.
According to the UN health agency, throughout the more than 13 months of cross-border gunfire between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza crisis, there have been 187 strikes on medical facilities in Lebanon.
Abdinasir Abubakar, the WHO representative in Lebanon, stated via video link from Beirut that “between October 7, 2023, and November 18 of this year, we have 226 deaths and 199 injuries in total.”
He claimed that since tensions turned into full-scale conflict in September, “nearly 70%” of these had taken place.
He emphasized that “targeting health providers and denying civilians access to lifesaving care is a breach of international humanitarian law,” calling this “an extremely worrying pattern.”
The destruction of health care has been a defining feature of the conflict in Lebanon, according to Abubakar, who also noted that 47 percent of these attacks “have proven fatal to at least one health worker or patient”—the greatest ratio of any conflict now in play.
Abubakar used statistics from a variety of combat settings, including Ukraine, Sudan, and the occupied Palestinian area, to demonstrate that, in contrast, just 13.3% of attacks against healthcare worldwide resulted in fatalities during the same time period.
He suggested the high percentage of fatal attacks on healthcare in Lebanon might be due to the fact that “more ambulances have been targeted”.
“And whenever the ambulance is targeted, actually, then you will have three, four or five paramedics … killed”.
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Source: Firstpost
