Lebanon: Father describes moment Israeli missile caused daughter’s third-degree burns

Lebanon’s health system is itself a casualty of war, under attack by Israel. The UN’s World Health Organisation has verified 23 attacks on health care in the past month, leading to 72 deaths.

The Lebanese health ministry has recorded “55 enemy attacks on hospitals and 201 on emergency medical technicians”. It says Israeli attacks on healthcare workers, facilities, and institutions are “a flagrant violation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the Geneva Conventions.”

In recent days we reported from the scene of an Israeli air strike just across the road from Lebanon’s biggest public hospital, Rafik Hariri, in Beirut. A few residential buildings were flattened, and 18 people were killed, four of them children. No warning was given.

The Israeli Defense Forces told the BBC that they are “targeting Hezbollah, a terrorist organisation” which, they claim, “exploits ambulances and other medical infrastructure.” They deny targeting medical personnel.

So far, the more than 30 staff in the burns unit are still getting to work every day. None of them have been displaced, but there is a new normal in Beirut – traffic jams by day, bombs by night. That’s taking a toll.

“Honestly, it’s very hard to deal with patients having traumas and burns due to war,” says Dr Sleiman. “We do not have soldiers here; all the victims are civilians. We have ladies, we have girls, we have babies. It’s not their affair, their war. We, as doctors, must stay strong. But we have hearts. We have kids.”

Before leaving I asked Ivana’s father if he had anything to say to those responsible for maiming his little girl. He thought for an instant before replying in a measured and weary voice.

“I am not happy. A soldier for a soldier, not a civilian. These are children, a baby”, he said, referring to Ivana. “I am not happy but what can I do? I don’t want to be a murderer like them.”