BEIRUT: Hostilities on the southern Lebanese front intensified on Friday, as Israeli bombing for the first time reached the Mays Al-Jabal Governmental Hospital, destroying it and also injuring a doctor.
According to Arab News, Imran Riza, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon, asked “all sides to adhere to global humanitarian law throughout their military offensive strictly, and to protect civilian population, including humanitarian and health workers.”
Pleading for all civilian areas, including farms, hospitals, and homes to be protected, he appealed all sides to “exercise maximum restraint and avert further escalation” and added further suffering among the civilians should be avoided.
The missile that hit the Mays Al-Jabal Governmental Hospital did not explode but it caused heavy damage to the hospital and wounded a doctor, the hospital’s director, Dr. Hussein Yassin stated.
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The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health denounced the attack, terming it as “blatant defiance of all the global laws.” It added it holds “Israel fully responsible for this unforgivable act, which would have led to disastrous results had the shell targeting the government hospital exploded,” and called for “a fair probe to hold those behind these crimes answerable.”
The development comes as earlier, The International Committee of the Red Cross has called for health workers and medical facilities in war-torn Gaza to be protected, adding the Gaza health system had “reached a point of no return.”
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The Red Cross said that its health teams in recent days had provided critical supplies to medical structures in the Gaza Strip, and had seen “terrible images that have now gotten worse because of sharpened hostilities.” The Red Cross stated that this was cruelly affecting health facilities and ambulances and medical staff. “Overstressed, running on thin supplies and insecure, the health care system in the Gaza has reached a point of no return.”
Medical facilities and health workers across Gaza have repeatedly come under brutal attack since October 7. Such strikes have dealt “a heavy setback to the health care system in the Gaza Strip, which is weakened after more than one month of heavy war,” ICRC added.
