Bracing for war: Lebanese hospitals ready emergency plans
Bracing for war: Lebanese hospitals ready emergency plans/node/2568556/middle-east
Bracing for war: Lebanese hospitals ready emergency plans
Hospital staff attend training as part of the Lebanese Health Ministry's emergency plan after 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. (AFP)
Bracing for war: Lebanese hospitals ready emergency plans
Lebanon has been setting in motion public health emergency plans since hostilities began
Updated 23 August 2024
AFP
BEIRUT: In Lebanon’s biggest public hospital, nurses are busy honing their life-saving skills as the spectre of all-out war looms, 10 months into intensifying clashes between Hezbollah and Israel over the Gaza war.
“We are in a state of readying for war,” nurse Basima Khashfi said as she gave emergency training to young nurses and other staff at the hospital in Beirut.
“We are currently training employees — not just nurses, but also administrative and security staff.
“With our current capabilities, we’re almost prepared” in case of a wider war, she told AFP.
Lebanon has been setting in motion public health emergency plans since hostilities began, relying mostly on donor funds after five years of gruelling economic crisis.
The threat of full-blown war grew after Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement vowed to avenge the killings last month, blamed on Israel, of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in south Beirut.
“We’re training to handle mass casualty incidents and to prepare for disasters or war,” said Lamis Dayekh, a 37-year-old nurse undergoing training. “If war breaks out, we’ll give everything we have.”
Growing tensions
The cross-border violence has killed nearly 600 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but including at least 131 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 23 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, army figures show.
In a building next to the hospital, where the emergency operations center is located, health ministry officials are busy typing away, making calls and monitoring news of the war in Gaza and south Lebanon on large television screens.
“This is not our first war and we have been ready every time,” said Wahida Ghalayini, who heads the center, active since hostilties began in October.
She cited a massive 2020 Beirut port explosion, Hezbollah and Israel’s 2006 conflict and Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.
The health ministry’s plan includes a helpline for those already displaced by war, an assessment of hospital needs, disaster training for staff and a mental health module.
The emergency room coordinates with rescue teams and hospitals in Lebanon’s south.
The plan prioritizes hospitals based on their location. The “red zone,” at high risk of Israeli strikes, comprises Hezbollah’s strongholds in the country’s south, east and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
But despite Lebanon’s long history of civil unrest and disasters, the public health sector now faces an economic crisis that has drained state coffers, forcing it to rely on aid.
Calls for aid
“We need lots of medical supplies, fuel, oxygen... the Lebanese state has a financial and economic problem,” said Ghalayini.
The state electricity provider barely produces power, so residents rely on expensive private generators and solar panels.
Most medical facilities depend on solar power during the day, she said, pointing to panels atop the adjacent hospital’s roof and parking lot.
Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said the country had enough drugs and medical supplies to last at least four months in case of a wider war.
“Efforts to increase readiness follow the (Israeli) enemy entity’s threat of expanding its aggression,” Abiad said in a statement.
Last month’s strike that killed a top Hezbollah commander targeted a densely packed residential area, killing five civilians and wounding scores more.
It tested the readiness of Beirut hospitals in the high-risk Hezbollah stronghold, Ghalayini told AFP.
As Israel threatens full-scale war, Lebanon is also looking to health workers in Gaza for emergency planning strategies, she said.
“We are observing the Gaza emergency center... to learn from them,” she said, pointing at television footage of bloodied patients at a hospital in Gaza, where the death toll has sparked mounting concerns.
For 25-year-old nurse Mohamed Hakla, the prospect of war is frightening but “our job is to help others. I will not deprive people of this (help) because of fear.”
Gaza civil defense says Israeli attacks kill 26 near two aid centers
22 were killed near a site southwest of Khan Yunis and four near a center northwest of Rafah
Updated 15 sec ago
AFP
GAZA: Gaza’s civil defense agency on Saturday said Israeli attacks killed 26 Palestinians and wounded more than 100 near two aid centers in the south of the Palestinian territory.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Basal told AFP that 22 were killed near a site southwest of Khan Yunis and four near a center northwest of Rafah, blaming “Israeli gunfire” for both.
Trump says more hostages to be released from Gaza shortly
Trump has been predicting for weeks that a ceasefire and hostage-release deal was imminent, but agreement has proven elusive
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 58,600 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities
Updated 19 July 2025
Reuters
WASHINGTON: Another 10 hostages will be released from Gaza shortly, US President Donald Trump said on Friday, without providing additional details.
Trump made the comment during a dinner with lawmakers at the White House, lauding the efforts of his special envoy Steve Witkoff. Israeli and Hamas negotiators have been taking part in the latest round of ceasefire talks in Doha since July 6, discussing a US-backed proposal for a 60-day ceasefire.
“We got most of the hostages back. We’re going to have another 10 coming very shortly, and we hope to have that finished quickly,” Trump said.
Trump has been predicting for weeks that a ceasefire and hostage-release deal was imminent, but agreement has proven elusive.
A spokesperson for the armed wing of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, on Friday said the group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, but could revert to insisting on a full package deal if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations.
The truce proposal calls for 10 hostages held in Gaza to be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 58,600 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel agree ceasefire with Syria, allows Syrian troops limited access to Sweida
Ceasefire supported by Turkiye, Jordan and neighbors
Syria’s Sweida province rocked by days of violence
Updated 43 sec ago
Reuters
BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire, the US envoy to Turkiye said on Friday, after days of bloodshed in the predominantly Druze area that has killed over 300 people.
On Wednesday, Israel launched airstrikes in Damascus and hit government forces in the south, demanding they withdraw and saying that Israel aimed to protect Syrian Druze — part of a small but influential minority that also has members in Lebanon and Israel.
“We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity,” Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkiye, said in a post on X.
Barrack said that Israel and Syria agreed to the ceasefire supported by Turkiye, Jordan and neighbors.
The Israeli embassy in Washington and Syrian consulate in Canada did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Syria’s Sweida province has been engulfed by nearly a week of violence triggered by clashes between Bedouin fighters and Druze factions.
Earlier on Friday, an Israeli official said Israel agreed to allow Syrian forces limited access to the Sweida area of southern Syria for the next two days.
The Syrian presidency said late on Friday that authorities would deploy a force in the south dedicated to ending the clashes, in coordination with political and security measures to restore stability and prevent the return of violence.
Damascus earlier this week dispatched government troops to quell the fighting, but they were accused of carrying out widespread violations against the Druze and were hit by Israeli strikes before withdrawing under a truce agreed on Wednesday.
Israel had repeatedly said it would not allow Syrian troops to deploy to the country’s south, but on Friday it said it would grant them a brief window to end renewed clashes there.
“In light of the ongoing instability in southwest Syria, Israel has agreed to allow limited entry of the (Syrian) internal security forces into Sweida district for the next 48 hours,” the official, who declined to be named, told reporters.
Describing Syria’s new rulers as barely disguised militants, Israel has vowed to shield the area’s Druze community from attack, encouraged by calls from Israel’s own Druze minority.
It carried out more strikes on Sweida in the early hours of Friday.
The US intervened to help secure the earlier truce between government forces and Druze fighters, and the White House said on Thursday that it appeared to be holding.
Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has worked to establish warmer ties with the US accused Israel of trying to fracture Syria and promised to protect its Druze minority.
Reuters reporters saw a convoy of units from Syria’s interior ministry stopped on a road in Daraa province, which lies directly east of Sweida. A security source told Reuters that forces were awaiting a final green light to enter Sweida.
But thousands of Bedouin fighters were still streaming into Sweida on Friday, the Reuters reporters said, prompting fears among residents that violence would continue unabated.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights said it had documented 321 deaths in fighting since Sunday, among them medical personnel, women and children. It said they included field executions by all sides.
Syria’s minister for emergencies said more than 500 wounded had been treated and hundreds of families had been evacuated out of the city.
Tribal and Bedouin fighters cross the al-Dur village in Syria's southern Sweida governorate as they mobilize amid clashes with Druze gunmen on July 18, 2025. (AFP)
‘Nothing at all’
Clashes continued in the north and west of Sweida province, according to residents and Ryan Marouf, the head of local news outlet Sweida24.
Residents said they had little food and water, and that electricity had been cut to the city for several days.
“For four days, there has been no electricity, no fuel, no food, no drink, nothing at all,” said Mudar, a 28-year-old resident of Sweida who asked to be identified only by his first name out of fear of reprisals.
“The clashes haven’t stopped,” he said, adding that “we can’t get news easily because there’s barely internet or phone coverage.”
The head of the UN human rights office urged Syria’s interim authorities to ensure accountability for what it said are credible reports of widespread rights violations during the fighting, including summary executions and kidnappings, the office said in a statement.
At least 13 people were unlawfully killed in one recorded incident on Tuesday when affiliates of the interim authorities opened fire at a family gathering, the OHCHR said. Six men were summarily executed near their homes the same day. The UN refugee agency on Friday urged all sides to allow humanitarian access, which it said had been curtailed by the violence. Israel’s deep distrust of Syria’s new Islamist-led leadership appears to be at odds with the United States, which said it did not support the recent Israeli strikes on Syria.
How rising temperatures may be linked to cancer cases and deaths among women in Middle East and North Africa
Researchers link rising temperatures to higher cancer rates and urge deeper study of climate-health risks facing women regionwide
New evidence suggests climate change may be worsening cancer outcomes for women, prompting calls for urgent regional response
Updated 19 July 2025
Jonathan Gornall
LONDON: Researchers at the American University in Cairo have identified a disturbing link between rising temperatures and increases in cases of breast, cervical, ovarian and uterine cancers among women in the Middle East and North Africa region.
The key message of a study that has identified “a significant correlation between prolonged exposure to high ambient temperatures and all four cancer types” is as simple as it is urgent, said Wafa Abu El-Kheir-Mataria, senior researcher at the Institute of Global Health and Human Ecology at the American University in Cairo.
“Our findings make it clear that climate change is not a distant or abstract threat. It is already impacting women’s health in tangible ways,” said Dr. Kheir-Mataria, co-author with Prof. Sungsoo Chun, associate director of the institute, of a new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health.
“In the MENA region, rising temperatures are significantly correlated with increased prevalence and mortality of several cancers affecting women.”
She added: “This evidence highlights the urgent need to integrate climate risks into cancer control strategies today, not tomorrow.”
The study looked at 17 countries in the MENA region and examined how increasing average temperatures coincided with how often women were getting certain cancers and dying from them.
The connection between rising temperatures and increasing cases of the four types of cancer was found to be significant in just six countries — Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Syria and Jordan.
The finding that the four wealthy Gulf states featured significantly was a “very important observation,” said Dr. Kheir-Mataria, and one that merits urgent further investigation.
Wafa Abu El Kheir-Mataria, senior researcher at the American University in Cairo. (Supplied)
“The Gulf countries have some of the strongest healthcare systems in the region,” she said.
“However, what our findings may reflect is that even high-performing systems are now facing new, complex challenges brought about by climate change — challenges that may not yet be fully addressed within traditional cancer control strategies.”
The Gulf states, she added, “are also among those experiencing the most extreme and rapid increases in temperature, which can amplify environmental exposures that are not always visible or easily managed, such as air pollution or heat-related physiological stress.”
At the same time, “social and behavioral factors, like health-seeking behaviors or cultural barriers to early screening, may continue to influence outcomes despite strong system capacity.”
DID YOU KNOW?
• Breast, ovarian, uterine and cervical cancers are rising in parts of MENA as temperatures increase year on year.
• Even Gulf countries with strong health systems show above-average increases in cancer deaths linked to climate stress.
• Researchers say a 4 C rise by 2050 could amplify health risks, but more local studies are urgently needed.
Dr Kheir-Mataria wants “more in-depth, country-specific research in countries such as Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Our study is an important starting point, but it has clear limitations. We worked with publicly available data and focused primarily on the relationship between temperature and cancer outcomes, while controlling for income.
“However, many other important factors such as air pollution levels, urban heat islands, occupational exposure, genetic predispositions, and healthcare utilization patterns were beyond the scope of this analysis.”
To fully understand all the factors at play, “we need access to more granular data and the opportunity to examine these additional variables in context.
displaced Palestinian woman washes a cap n the beach in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on June 24, 2024. A study says the connection between rising temperatures and increasing cases of the four types of cancer was found to be significant in six Mideastern countries. (NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“That’s why we are actively seeking local partnerships with research institutions, ministries of health, and environmental agencies and funding to support collaborative studies.”
The Gulf states, she said, “are uniquely positioned to lead the way in advancing global understanding of climate-related health risks, and we would be honored to work together to generate evidence that informs national policy and protects women’s health in the face of climate change.”
Meanwhile, it is necessary to “acknowledge that environmental stressors such as rising temperatures and air pollution can exacerbate cancer risks, particularly for vulnerable groups such as women, and incorporate climate change adaptation into cancer control plans.”
Adaptation strategies “might include strengthening early detection and screening services in high-risk areas, ensuring healthcare facilities remain accessible during climate-related disruptions, and integrating environmental risk monitoring into public health planning.”
A woman with cancer cleanses her skin in a make-up class. Cancer therapy with chemotherapy or radiotherapy can drastically change the appearance of the patient with hair loss, loss of eyelashes and eyebrows or skin irritation. (Picture Alliance via Getty Images)
Dr Kheir-Mataria said this “involves cross-sectoral collaboration between health, environmental, and planning ministries to build climate resilient healthcare systems.”
The study combined two decades of data from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation’s Global Burden of Disease with statistics on temperature change from the FAOSTAT Climate Change database of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, for every year from 1998 to 2019.
Applying a method of statistical analysis called multiple linear regression, which adjusted results to take account of socioeconomic differences between countries that might influence health outcomes, the researchers were able to identify “a clear pattern: where temperatures rose, cancer rates and deaths often rose too.”
This was expressed in the percentage increase in cases and deaths for each degree Celcius the temperature rose. For example, the largest increase in deaths was found in ovarian cancer, with an overall average increase across the 17 countries of 0.33 percentage points per degree.
But increased numbers of deaths from ovarian cancer were higher than average in Jordan and the UAE (both 0.48).
Although the overall increase in deaths from cervical cancer was the lowest of the four diseases (0.171), the increase was higher than average in Iran (0.3), Jordan (0.45), and Qatar (0.61).
A study says the connection between rising temperatures and increasing cases of the four types of cancer was found to be significant in six Mideastern countries. (NurPhoto via Getty Images)
In Saudi Arabia, significant increases in cases were detected in ovarian (0.29) and uterine (0.36) cancers. An above-average increase in deaths in the Kingdom was found in breast cancer (0.31).
The paper points out that, with a temperature rise of 4 C expected by 2050, “the MENA region is particularly at risk due to global warming.”
In 2019, 175,707 women in the region died from cancer. But, Dr Kheir-Mataria said, it was not possible to simply multiply the study’s findings by four to predict the number of additional cancer deaths by 2050 related to rising temperatures.
“This is a question we fully understand the interest in, but we must be very careful not to overstate what our data can tell us,” she said.
A displaced Palestinian woman is being seen on the beach in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on June 24, 2024. A study says the connection between rising temperatures and increasing cases of the four types of cancer was found to be significant in six Mideastern countries. (NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“Our study found a statistical association between rising temperatures and cancer deaths among women. However, these are correlations, not predictions, and they were based on historical data over a specific period, with many other contributing factors.
“Projecting the number of additional deaths by 2050 based on a hypothetical 4 C rise would go beyond what our data allows, as it would require complex modelling that includes population growth, healthcare system changes, adaptation measures, and other environmental or behavioral variables.
“We did not conduct such a projection in this study, and doing so responsibly would require a separate research design.”
She added: “That said, the potential implications of a 4 C increase are certainly concerning, particularly in countries already experiencing extreme heat.
“This is why we strongly advocate for further research, including dynamic modelling and country-level analyses, to understand and prepare for the possible long-term health impacts of climate change, especially on women.”
Israeli military says missile launched from Yemen was intercepted
Updated 18 July 2025
Reuters
Israeli military said late on Friday that it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen after air raid sirens sounded in several areas across Israel.
The Iran-aligned Houthis, who control the most populous parts of Yemen, have been firing at Israel and attacking shipping lanes.
Houthis have repeatedly said that their attacks are an act of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel’s military assault since late 2023 has killed more than 58,000 people, Gaza authorities say.
Most of the dozens of missiles and drones they have launched have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.