BEIRUT — Eighteen-month-old Ivana Likbiri was taking part in together with her older sister on the balcony of their residence one latest morning when Israel’s airstrikes got here.
In a flash, the wooden terrace the 2 little women have been taking part in on went up in flames.
“I don’t know what divine energy stuffed me, however I grabbed my women from the fireplace and threw them over the balcony to save lots of them,” says Ivana’s mom, Fatima Zayoun.
Zayoun’s time is now spent between two hospitals the place her daughters are receiving remedy for extreme burns. On today, she’s on the bedside of little Ivana, whose arms, legs, head and face are all wrapped in bandages with solely sufficient room for a pink pacifier to assuage her. The following day, Zayoun will swap locations together with her husband, who has been on the bedside of their 7-year-old Raha. She’s recovering at a unique hospital that also had open beds when the household made it to Beirut from their village of Deir Qanoun al-Nahr in southern Lebanon.
Zayoun and her household are actually amongst Lebanon’s 1.2 million displaced individuals who have needed to flee their properties as Israel has intensified its airstrikes throughout the nation in its battle in opposition to the Iran-backed political and militant group Hezbollah.
Some have settled into new properties in new neighborhoods, others are taking shelter in colleges or nightclubs. Zayoun has no concept the place her household will find yourself.
“I’ve solely been between the 2 hospitals and don’t know the place we’re going to really reside,” she says, reflecting on how she had deliberate to evacuate her household the morning of the Sept. 23 strike proper after they completed breakfast. “We don’t have a spot, we don’t have an condominium. I’m simply exhausted and I really feel damaged and numb.”
All she’s sure of at this second is that her household won’t ever return to the village they fled, not even after the conflict ends. All the nice recollections from their life there are overshadowed by the horrors of the airstrike.
Lebanon’s solely burn unit
Ivana is one in all 22 sufferers being handled within the burn unit of the Geitaoui Hospital in Beirut. It’s a personal medical heart with the solely burn unit in Lebanon. Solely probably the most critically injured victims are transferred to the hospital.
With Israel’s airstrikes intensifying, the hospital has greater than doubled its variety of beds, however it nonetheless can’t sustain with the unprecedented variety of casualties with extreme burns.
“Day by day we get calls from hospitals all around the nation to switch sufferers, however we will’t settle for everyone due to the large movement of sufferers,” says Dr. Ziad Sleiman, one of many hospital’s plastic and reconstructive surgeons. “We have now to decide on probably the most sophisticated circumstances and switch away the others.”
Obtainable beds are simply a part of the battle.
Medical employees have fled, whereas some have been hit
Among the medical employees have misplaced their properties in airstrikes and are among the many displaced, taking break day to choose up the items of their very own lives.
“We have now transferred employees from different wards and we’re actively coaching them on learn how to deal with burns,” says Sleiman, who has labored on the hospital for 20 years and has by no means seen it so overwhelmed and at such a financially susceptible time for the nation.
Earlier than the conflict, Lebanon was already mired in an financial disaster. Years of presidency and banking sector mismanagement led to the collapse of the monetary system in 2019. That triggered extreme shortages of meals, gasoline and medication and set off an period of hyperinflation. Well being care prices soared making it tough for individuals to get handled for even critical sicknesses and the salaries of docs and nurses plunged. Medical employees left the nation in droves.
It’s in opposition to that enduring backdrop that hospitals are actually within the grips of a conflict that has killed greater than 2,500 individuals and left nearly 12,000 wounded in Lebanon, in accordance with the nation’s Well being Ministry.
And medical employees haven’t been spared.
Clinics, ambulances, and search-and-rescue groups have been caught within the Israeli navy’s line of fireplace. Greater than 150 medical and emergency employees have been killed in Lebanon since final October, when combating first broke out between Hezbollah and Israel, in accordance with Lebanon’s well being minister, Dr. Firass Abiad.
Some take a look at Israel’s conflict in Gaza, with hospitals there relentlessly caught within the crossfire and greater than 800 well being care employees killed, in accordance with the United Nations human rights workplace, and surprise in the event that they’re staring down the identical destiny.
Dr. Sleiman can’t fathom having his hospital come beneath hearth like that. However treating victims of this conflict like 18-month-old Ivana Likbiri, recommend something is feasible.