In Lebanon, paramedics are victims of the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel

In southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, rescue workers are working tirelessly to treat those injured in Israeli strikes. Their own teams are also affected, and their resources remain precarious in a bankrupt country.

In Lebanon, rocket fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army continues. Since October, the conflict has already left 130 civilians dead on the Lebanese side. Nearly one in five were part of paramedic teams. On the front lines, the latter are dealing with the resources of a bankrupt Lebanese state.

In the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, a fire truck and an ambulance speed toward the border. “We have been working non-stop for ten months, says Ali Safieddine, the head of civil defense in the region. We are tired of the stress and pressure and we haven’t really seen our families since the war started.”

In the bankrupt country, the civil defense is struggling to keep up with the pace of the war. Here, the men say that the Lebanese state only gives enough money to fill up the vehicles with gas four times a month. Enough to last barely two days. For the rest, the Lebanese civil defense is dependent on foreign donations.

A few kilometers away, in the city of Naqoura, another group receives emergency calls. The Al-Risala association functions almost like the civil defense, but is not attached to the state. It is funded by the Amal party, Hezbollah’s first ally in Lebanon. Ahmad is an ambulance driver, he is following his colleagues’ operations by phone. “In front of us is the Lebanese border. That’s where we intervene to take the wounded to hospitals,” he explains.

“We have already lost four members of our group in this war. More than twenty paramedics if you count the other medical organizations.”

Ahmad, ambulance driver

to franceinfo

Even though their organizations are linked to political parties, the paramedics on the ground are still civilians. East of the border, in the village of Habbaryeh, an entire clinic was destroyed by Israel. The clinic was linked to Jamaa Islamiya, a group close to the Muslim Brotherhood. “The strike fell in the middle of the clinic, all our windows exploded, describes Mohammad, the mayor of the village, who lives in the neighboring house. The young people were under this debris here.”

The mayor then spoke of the seven young men who died in the attack, all in their twenties. At the same time, a detonation on the nearby hill released a thick white cloud. “These are white phosphorus rockets, whoever hits a piece on the ground will be instantly burned, Mohammad continues. Already the entire pine valley here has been decimated.”

The wind carries some opaque smoke, extremely irritating. In Habbaryeh, there is only one ambulance left for the entire village. But if someone is injured, it would be unusable. The strike on the clinic killed the last ambulance driver who knew how to drive it.