Doctors in Lebanon fear for their lives as bombs rain down
Doctors at one of the biggest hospitals in southern Lebanon say they’re scared for their lives after a string of nearby attacks within a few days.
Half of the staff have already left. The others have moved into the building and have been living at the hospital for the past ten days.
“You know, it’s hard to work in fear,” Dr Mohammad Taoube tells us, who is head of the hospital’s emergency response (ER).
He adds: “I’m afraid first, about my safety and about my family’s safety because there’s no safe place in Lebanon now.”
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Dr Mohammad Taoube
The hospital has seen three close attacks recently, including one which landed outside the emergency department, blocking its entrance and injuring casualties who had just been tended to by ER staff.
“They were injured twice,” says one doctor. “Once from bombs on their home, and then this as they were about to leave.”
The medics believe the nearby attacks are intended to scare them to leave or abandon the hospital.
Dr Abdul Nasser, who is a general surgeon at the hospital (which we are not naming for safety reasons), tells us how he fears the attacks, which are coming ever closer, are a deliberate tactic.
“As soon as the doctors leave then no one will stay in my city,” Dr Nasser says. “And once people leave, it is very difficult to come back.”
He goes on to urge his medical staff to stay in position and keep on working. “Soldiers can’t leave the battle… so likewise doctors, nurses, must stay in the hospitals. I don’t want anyone to leave. We must stay.”
Dr Abdul Nasser
Dr Nasser is a veteran of three previous wars. He tells us: “This is the worst and it will go on for a long time.”
He goes on: “I never left before. I never left the hospital in the previous wars.”
“Yes, I’m scared,” he admits. “But I try to be positive and carry on with my life and just do what I have to do.”
The hospital has taken in about 1,500 war wounded in the past fortnight.
They are no longer operating as they did pre-war but are one of the key emergency centres for casualties, some of whom are evacuated from the frontlines right up against the border.
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A family of five are the latest to be brought in from the border village of Alma al Chaab. The youngest, nine-year-old Mariam, is writhing in pain when we arrive with Dr Nasser to see her.
She was sitting with her mother and siblings when a rocket hit the house.
“Everything just fell on me,” she says. Her left leg is bandaged up to the hip.
“She has a double fracture and it’s pinned,” Dr Nasser tells us. “Her arm is broken and she has several wounds.”
Her elder brother is standing nearby. He’s still in his blood-stained clothes – dusty and spattered with large stains of blood.
He is 19 and still reeling from what’s happened. “It’s a big shock. Nothing like this has ever happened to us before,” he says.
Mariam was injured when a rocket hit her house
The casualties that are most overwhelming to deal with are women and children, the medics tell us.
“It is hard to cope with children’s pain,” says Dr Taoube. “Very, very hard. I hope you never see this. I hope other doctors never have to deal with this. It is very hard.”
Dr Hussam Telleih adds: “We don’t feel safe, the patients don’t feel safe… they [the Israelis] are saying there’s rockets or bombs in or around the hospital from Hezbollah but this isn’t true… we deny all these things.”
Two wounded men at the hospital in southern Lebanon
Many of the cities and communities in the southern area have emptied out – with the Lebanese government estimating about a million people are on the move and out of their homes – the largest displacement in the country’s history.
But there are still many civilians who can’t or won’t leave their homes.
“Why should I leave?” says Mohammad Halawi. “It’s kind of like collective punishment. They claim they target specific people but they’re killing everyone.”
He is standing in the destroyed block which once housed 32 members of his family in five separate flats. He tells us he thinks the target may have been the house right behind his.
Mohammad Halawi surveys the aftermath of an air strike on a building which once housed 32 members of his family
His neighbour was a Hezbollah supporter but he knew very little else about him. He and his family of eight, including children, were all killed in the attack. More than a dozen other homes have been destroyed.
His nephew’s young wife Anwar died – leaving behind two toddlers. Her husband was at work, so he survived. Several other members of the family have been left injured.
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Mother killed and house destroyed in Lebanon
The war wounded in the hospital are stabilised as quickly as possible and emergency surgery is carried out if needed.
But patients are then evacuated to other areas considered to be relatively safer, like Beirut.
Finding a safe location in Lebanon is becoming increasingly challenging, though.
“They don’t have hearts, or morals or any humanity,” another injured man in the hospital tells us, his head bound with a bandage.
“If they were hitting military targets, we’d just keep quiet,” said Oussama Najdi who came from Deir Kanoun. “But they hit our house – and we don’t even have one small gun between us.”
Alex Crawford reports from southern Lebanon with cameraman Jake Britton, specialist producer Chris Cunningham and Lebanon producers Jihad Jneid and Sami Zein.
World
US ‘destroying’ international rules-based order by trying to meet Russia ‘halfway’, Ukraine’s UK ambassador warns
The United States is “finally destroying” the international rules-based order by trying to meet Russia “halfway”, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK has warned.
Valerii Zaluzhnyi said Washington’s recent actions in relation to Moscow could lead to the collapse of NATO – with Europe becoming Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s next target.
“The failure to qualify actions of Russia as an aggression is a huge challenge for the entire world and Europe, in particular,” he told a conference at the Chatham House think tank.
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“We see that it is not just the axis of evil and Russia trying to revise the world order, but the US is finally destroying this order.”
Valerii Zaluzhnyi. Pic: Reuters
Mr Zaluzhnyi, who took over as Kyiv’s ambassador to London in 2024 following three years as commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, also warned that the White House had “questioned the unity of the whole Western world” – suggesting NATO could cease to exist as a result.
It comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy scrambles to repair relations with US President Donald Trump following a dramatic row between the two men in the Oval Office last week.
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Mr Trump signalled on Tuesday that tensions could be easing, telling Congress he had received a letter from Mr Zelenskyy saying he was ready to sign a peace deal “at any time”.
Zelenskyy and Trump during their extraordinary Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
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But on the same day, the US president ordered a sudden freeze on shipments of US military aid to Ukraine, and Washington has since paused intelligence sharing with Kyiv and halted cyber operations against Russia.
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Mr Zaluzhnyi said the pause in cyber operations and an earlier decision by the US to oppose a UN resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine were “a huge challenge for the entire world”.
He added that talks between the US and Russia – “headed by a war criminal” – showed the White House “makes steps towards the Kremlin, trying to meet them halfway”, warning Moscow’s next target “could be Europe”.
World
Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh being forced to fight for same military accused of genocide against their people
Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh is a sprawling mass of humanity.
It’s a sea of makeshift bamboo shelters, home to more than one million Rohingya refugees – a mainly Muslim minority from Rakhine state in Myanmar.
Some 700,000 fled their homeland back in 2017 – after the Myanmar military massacred thousands.
The army was accused of genocide by the United Nations.
The Rohingya refugees didn’t escape danger though.
Right now, violence is at its worst levels in the camps since 2017 and Rohingya people face a particularly cruel new threat – they’re being forced back to fight for the same Myanmar military accused of trying to wipe out their people.
A child at the refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar
Militant groups are recruiting Rohingya men in the camps, some at gunpoint, and taking them back to Myanmar to fight for a force that’s losing ground.
Jaker is just 19.
We’ve changed his name to protect his identity.
He says he was abducted at gunpoint last year by a group of nine men in Cox’s.
They tied his hands with rope he says and took him to the border where he was taken by boat with three other men to fight for the Myanmar military.
“It was heartbreaking,” he told me. “They targeted poor children. The children of wealthy families only avoided it by paying money.”
And he says the impact has been deadly.
“Many of our Rohingya boys, who were taken by force from the camps, were killed in battle.”
Jaker speaks to Sky’s Cordelia Lynch
An aerial view of the refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar
The situation in Cox’s is desperate.
People are disillusioned by poverty, violence and the plight of their own people and the civil war they ran from is getting worse.
In Rakhine, just across the border, there’s been a big shift in dynamics.
The Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic armed group has all but taken control of the state from the ruling military junta.
Both the military and the AA are accused of committing atrocities against Rohingya Muslims.
And whilst some Rohingya claim they’re being forced into the fray – dragged back to Myanmar from Bangladesh, others are willing to go.
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Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar – where refugees arrive from Myanmar after crossing the Naf River
Some are so aggrieved with the AA, they’re willing to support their former persecutors.
Abu Zar is one of those willing to take up arms.
But not for the military or AA, he says.
Everyone praying in the mosque with him is prepared to go back to protect their own cause he says – not anyone else’s.
“We want to fight for our rights because we have been demanding justice for a long time. But the situation has become unbearable,” he tells me.
Abu Zar has said he is willing to take up arms for his own cause
It’s estimated between 3,000 and 5,000 Rohingya have joined armed groups from this camp.
But the fight they are joining has become increasingly bloody.
In a cramped shelter, we meet Safura.
Safura came under fire as she fled Myanmar
Safura’s son Aman had his foot blown off
Five days ago she managed to get out of Myanmar but she had to be carried part of the way.
Her legs are riddled with bullet wounds and the pain is severe.
Her son, Aman, who lies on the floor next to her, has had his foot blown off.
They were injured she said, during an attack on her family home in the middle of the night.
“They entered our house and shot all my family members. My husband and mother-in-law were killed on the spot.”
The military denies forcing Rohingya to the battlefield. But the camps tell a different story- one of surging violence and vulnerability.
US President Donald Trump has told Gazans to hand over Israeli hostages or “you are dead”.
The threat, made over social media, came hours after the White House confirmed that US officials had broken with tradition to hold direct talks with Hamas.
The US has previously avoided direct contact with the group owing to Washington’s longstanding position not to negotiate with terrorists – with Hamas having been designated as a terrorist group in the US since 1997.
In a press conference on Wednesday, White House press secretary Ms Keavitt said there had been “ongoing talks and discussions” between the US officials and Hamas.
File pic: AP
But she would not be drawn on the substance of the talks – taking place in Doha, Qatar – between US officials and Hamas, but said Israel had been consulted.
Ms Leavitt continued: “Dialogue and talking to people around the world to do what’s in the best interest of the American people, is something that the president has proven is what he believes is a good faith, effort to do what’s right for the American people.”
There are “American lives at stake,” she added.
Adam Boehler, Mr Trump’s pick to be special envoy for hostage affairs, participated in the direct talks with Hamas.
A spokesperson for Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel had “expressed to the United States its position regarding direct talks with Hamas”.
Hours later, Mr Trump warned Hamas to hand over Israeli hostages or “it’s over for you” – adding: “This is your last warning”.
Hamas militants on the day of a hostage handover in Gaza in February. Pic: Reuters
On his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump wrote: “Release all of the hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered or it is over for you.
“Only sick and twisted people keep bodies and you are sick and twisted. I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job, not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say.”
Mr Trump met with freed Israeli hostages on Wednesday, something he referenced in his social media post, before adding: “This is your last warning. For the leadership of Hamas, now is the time to leave Gaza, while you still have a chance.
“Also, to the people of Gaza, a beautiful future awaits, but not if you hold hostages. If you do, you are dead. Make a smart decision. Release the hostages now, or there will be hell to pay later.”
Israel estimates about 24 living hostages, including American citizen Edan Alexander, and the bodies of at least 35 others, are still believed to be in Gaza.
Donald Trump with Benjamin Netanyahu in February. Pic: Reuters
The US has a long-held policy of not negotiating with terrorists – which it is breaking with these talks as Hamas has been designated a foreign terrorist organisation by the US government’s National Counterterrorism Center since 1997.
The discussions come as a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire continues to hold, but its future is uncertain.
Palestinians amid the rubble in the southern Gaza strip. Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump has signalled he has no intention of pushing the Israeli prime minister away from a return to combat if Hamas does not agree to terms of a new ceasefire proposal – which, Israel says, has been drafted by US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
The new plan would require Hamas to release half its remaining hostages – the group’s main bargaining chip – in exchange for a ceasefire extension and a promise to negotiate a lasting truce.
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Israel has made no mention of releasing more Palestinian prisoners, a key component of the first phase.
Fighting in Gaza has been halted since 19 January.
Hamas has exchanged 33 Israeli and five Thai hostages for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
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