[Lebanon’s emergency workers pay a deadly price amid Israeli bombing](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/Relatives of victims react as search and rescue team members work to find bodies under the rubble of buildings destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Ain el-Delb, Lebanon (30 September 2024))

ImageReuters A burnt high-vis jacket on top of a fallen concrete block beside a pile of rubble.Reuters

A healthcare worker's jacket lies among the rubble after an Israeli strike in Beirut

The Israeli military has been hitting search-and-rescue teams, medical centres and hospitals across Lebanon since it escalated its offensive against Hezbollah last month.

The attacks have killed and injured dozens of medics and emergency workers and have left swathes of the south cut off from emergency services and healthcare.

One organisation has been hit more than any other. The Islamic Health Society (IHS), funded by Hezbollah, operates emergency services, hospitals and medical centres across the country.

As of Friday, more than 85 of its staff had been killed, and more than 150 wounded, according to Bilal Assaf, head of media relations at the IHS Civil Defence.

Just after midnight on 7 October, Israel struck the Baraachit Emergency Centre in the southern Bint Jbeil region, killing at least 10 firefighters, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

In the hours before the attack, the firefighters in Baraachit - part of the IHS Civil Defence emergency services - were grappling with a grim dilemma.

There were still civilians in the area – including some who refused to leave - but Israeli forces were no longer allowing the team to conduct missions.

“Every time they went out, they would hit near their vehicle,” says Mr Assaf.

The firefighters decided to split up; some would head north to Nabatiyeh, and others would stay and reassess whether to relocate in the morning.

“Unfortunately, they didn’t live to see the next morning,” Mr Assaf says.

In the early hours of Monday, an Israeli air strike destroyed the building where they were staying.

The Lebanese health ministry denounced the strike as a “massacre”.

In a statement, it said: “The Israeli enemy has added to its rich record a new war crime against firefighters and rescue workers in south Lebanon, displaying unmatched violence and lack of humanity, targeting people engaged in purely humanitarian search and rescue missions.”

A few hours after the attack, the Lebanese Red Cross went to the site and found eight bodies.

There were more under the rubble, but it could not remove them because search and rescue teams could not make it to the site, according to Mr Assaf.

Days after the attack, he tells me, the remains of several firefighters are still under the debris.

ImageThe Islamic Health Society Emergency workers approach the Baraachit Emergency Centre the morning after an Israeli strike. Walls have collapsed and rubble surrounds the building. The Islamic Health Society

The Baraachit Emergency Centre pictured the morning after an Israeli strike

As Lebanon struggles with a mass displacement crisis caused by Israeli strikes across large parts of the country, IHS medics and volunteers are offering support to the people affected – alongside the government and other organisations.

In one of many schools in Beirut which have become shelters, hundreds of people who have fled Israeli bombing on the south and the southern suburbs of Beirut try to make themselves at home.

Clothes hang out to dry from the windows of the classrooms overlooking the playground; faces - some bored, some curious - take the occasional glance at the scene unfolding below and disappear back to their bedrooms.

Down in the schoolyard, children play around, some with bicycles, others with footballs.

A few young men gather around our camera, complaining about water shortages. Some of the adults take drags on their shishas, a popular pastime suited for a long and uncertain wait.

Overhead, the constant hum of an Israeli drone - a new normal all over Beirut.

'Everyone knows someone who was martyred'

Ali Freidi, who runs the health centres of the IHS, tells me they have deployed doctors, nurses, therapists and psychiatrists to help the growing mass of displaced people.

He acknowledges the immense pressure the IHS's services were under, both in dealing with the growing needs of the displaced, as well as Israel’s strikes on their colleagues in the emergency services.

“We are part of the fabric of society,” he says. “Everyone knows someone who was martyred.”

Batoul Hammoud, 25, is a school teacher and a volunteer with the IHS Civil Defence.

She says she and her fellow volunteers have been going around the school - and another one across the street - to try to figure out how they can help.

“The most pressing need is medicine. Many people left their homes without taking their medicine.”

The IHS offers routine daily services, such as monitoring the blood pressure of the many elderly among the displaced, she says.

“As a teacher, I can also offer some psychological support for the kids, organise some activities, or just talk to them and calm them down.”

ImageBatoul Hammoud stands in the schoolyard wearing a high-vis jacket and round glasses.

Batoul Hammoud said medicine was the most pressing need for those that had been displaced

The IHS emerged in the early 1980s; amidst a civil war, an Israeli occupation of the south, and a breakdown of the state across Lebanon.

It was later licensed by the government, and currently operates in co-ordination with the Ministry of Health.

It also has agreements with municipalities to run medical centres and emergency services.

As the health service comes under intense fire across the country, it has taken more hits than any other health organisation.

On 3 October, Israel struck a centre belonging to the IHS in the heart of Beirut, killing nine people and wounding 14.

ImageReuters People walk past a concrete building with its windows blown out and rubble lying beneath.Reuters

Nine people were killed after a missile struck this IHS building on 3 October

Most of those killed were civil defence workers and paramedics, who were just back from a search-and-rescue mission in the southern suburbs, where there had been heavy Israeli bombardment.

The next day, seven medics were killed in an Israeli air strike on two IHS ambulances near the entrance to Marjaiyoun hospital, in the south of the country. The hospital went out of service on that day.

Also that day Israeli forces struck the IHS-run Salah Ghandour Hospital in Bint Jbeil, wounding several doctors and hospital staff. The hospital suspended operations following the attack.

The director of the hospital, Dr Mohamad Sleiman, told me the hospital was functioning well until the last day, despite the war raging around it.

“We had medicine and equipment. The government plan was working well. We had no shortages the day of the accident. We just need safety,” he said.

'Who among us won't be here tomorrow?'

The Israeli military has issued several statements accusing Hezbollah of using medical vehicles to transport fighters and weapons.

It described its attack on the Baarachit Emergency Centre as a “precise, intelligence-based strike on several Hezbollah terrorist operatives who were using a fire station as a military post during combat”.

It also accused Hezbollah of “systematic abuse of civilian infrastructure”.

It said the strike on the HIS centre in central Beirut targeted “terror assets”.

And on Sunday, an Israeli military spokesman claimed that it had “discovered lately that Hezbollah elements are using ambulances to transport saboteurs and weapons”, and threatened it would take “the necessary measures against any vehicle transporting gunmen”, regardless of what type of vehicle it is.

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