MARJAYOUN, Lebanon: From his office overlooking the border with Israel, Dr. Mounes Klakesh can hear the thump of artillery rounds and air strikes landing on nearby Lebanese towns. The increasing frequency of those strikes has the staff of his small hospital on edge.
“We’ve already had to treat 51 people wounded by explosions in the last month or so. Seventeen of those died, or arrived dead. More than that and we’d be overwhelmed,” Klakesh said.
Klakesh, director of the Marjayoun Hospital in southern Lebanon, said it serves nearly 300,000 people in the area. It has 14 emergency beds and struggles to operate because of a lack of staff and, crucially, lack of fuel.
The hospital runs on generators 20 hours a day and has to pay up to $20,000 a month for the fuel. “None of that money comes from the government anymore. We rely on what funds the hospital has from one week to the next,” Klakesh said.
If the fuel runs out, the hospital closes. “We can’t just switch off part of the hospital.”
Dozens more public hospitals are in a similarly precarious state. Lebanon’s economic collapse in 2019 left them barely able to cope in peacetime.
Now, an escalating conflict on the southern border with Israel is pushing the health care sector into a new crisis. Doctors worry the latest Middle East war could stretch it beyond breaking point.
Fighting broke out here after Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas went to war in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7.
The Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, has fired rockets at Israeli troops and Israel has bombed and shelled areas along the border in increasing attacks that are fueling concerns of a widening conflict.