Easter weekend marked one of the most intense moments so far of Israel’s war on Lebanon. At around 2pm on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces bombed a densely populated, residential area near the Rafik Hariri University hospital, Lebanon’s largest public hospital, killing at least five people and wounding 50 others.
When I worked at the hospital in 2020, I treated the most vulnerable people in Lebanese society: migrant workers, stateless Palestinians, Syrian refugees. What happened on Sunday is consistent with what seems to be Israel’s broader strategy in Lebanon: human rights organisations and medical workers say the IDF is crippling healthcare infrastructure, targeting hospitals and medics, sometimes when they are sitting in ambulances or in first aid centres. Israel is also forcing the displacement of civilians on a large scale, rendering parts of the country unlivable, while Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that the two-week Iran ceasefire doesn’t apply to Lebanon tells us that this is far from over.
