This article was originally published in Arabic on 3 October 2024, the day after the Bachoura strike.

“They want nobody to be left to recover our bodies if we are killed,” says Mariam Ghoul, a southerner displaced to Beirut’s district of Bachoura, which was shaken in the middle of Wednesday night by an Israeli strike targeting a center run by the Islamic Health Organization’s (IHO) Directorate of Civil Defense. This strike in central Beirut represents an expansion of the scope of Israel’s attacks on medics. Seven medics and members of the IHO Civil Defense’s leadership were martyred, as were two people passing by. Two other civil defense personnel and 16 residents and passers-by were reportedly wounded, with four remaining in hospital. According to a statement from the Lebanese Ministry of Health, this tally is liable to increase as DNA testing is conducted on the remains recovered.

Since 8 October 2023, at least 97 medics and health workers have been martyred in Israel’s strikes on Lebanon and 10 hospitals have been damaged, according to the latest statistics that the minister announced today. Crews from all the various organizations working within the framework of relief and emergency medical aid have been targeted over a year of aggression against Lebanon. The attacks have recently intensified amidst the accelerating and all-encompassing Israeli escalation.

International humanitarian law prohibits the targeting of medical and relief crews and affords them special protection. While some people are citing the relationship between the targeted relief crews and Hezbollah to justify their targeting, these claims are at complete odds with international law. Moreover, Israel has a history of impunity in this context thanks to the protection provided to it by the countries of the Global North.

The Target: An Old Emergency Aid Center

At the site of the strike, scattered health equipment like sphygmomanometers, stethoscopes, bandages, bags of medical gloves, and armored vests and gray clothing bearing the logo of the IHO and its civil defense, which belonged to the martyrs, were also visible. Storefronts and several cars parked in the area were also destroyed. 

Today, a colleague of the medics was seen holding the vest belonging to one of them up to his face and crying. Colleagues of the targeted medics tell the Legal Agenda that the seven martyrs had returned from a rescue mission in Dahieh – Beirut’s southern section – to rest after a difficult and dangerous workday in an area subject day and night to bombing and fierce Israeli strikes. IHO Civil Defense Press Officer Mahmoud Karaki says, “We thought that the center was beyond the scope of the targeting as it is outside Dahieh”.

The targeted apartment is an old first aid center hosting a team specialized in emergency intervention, according to one IHO member and the testimonies of residents. The IHO member tells the Legal Agenda, “We were dealing with any emergency case here. Whether the case originates from a vehicle accident or any other circumstance warranting rapid intervention, we respond immediately”. He explains that the center played a key role in providing first aid and medical services to displaced people during the recent period and was always at the ready. It also participated in the emergency aid operations following the strike that targeted the Kola area.

Hassan, who resides in the area, says, “We are civilians, and we are victims of this war”. He talks about the damage done to glass facades in his home, the collapse of drop ceilings, the destruction of belongings, and the wounds among the residents. Imad, a resident of the targeted building, talks about the moments of terror he experienced with his children and the displaced families living with him in the same home: “There are ten children in my home, as is the case with all the homes here because the displaced came thinking that it was a safe area”. The targeted building comprises 11 stories and is part of a complex of four residential blocks containing more than 80 homes. The area contains residential buildings, shops, and schools, as well as a huge Lebanese Civil Defense facility.

“We know our building well, and everyone in it is a civilian. We know this center and its purely civilian, humanitarian role,” Imad says.

Pressuring Civilians and Displaced Persons

The targeted building lies at the heart of Beirut, just 500 meters from the Government Palace. It is the second strike on administrative Beirut during the Israeli aggression against Lebanon underway since 8 October 2023, which coincides with Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. Administrative Beirut had not been targeted for decades, not even during the 2006 aggression. Hence, the people of the area had not been part of the forced displacement that has affected more than a fifth of the country’s population and turned the capital into a refuge for tens of thousands seeking safety.

The houses and schools of Bachoura, along with Zuqaq al-Blat, host several thousand displaced people. The center is located on the first story of the residential building and neighbors a school that belongs to the Makassed association and opened its doors to people displaced from Beirut’s Dahieh last Friday. The center plays a vital role in serving the displaced and carrying out relief and emergency aid missions when Israeli strikes hit Beirut’s periphery, especially Dahieh.

Mariam, who is sheltering in the Makassed school, says that she was in the school’s play area the moment the strike hit: “At first, we heard several strikes targeting Dahieh and were told that they were coming from warships. Consequently, many of us went inside the school out of fear. At that point, the strike occurred. The smoke was thick and the sound terrifying. We thought it had hit the school”.

Mariam suffered a severe allergic reaction to the thick smoke that flooded the school-turned-shelter. She describes to the Legal Agenda the stench that pervaded the atmosphere. She says that many of the children began choking, and some of the elderly struggled to breathe. The strike has caused many of the area’s residents to flee to the Biel area bordering the sea, seeking air and fearing renewed bombing.

Mariam feels especially affected because she knows the IHO team in the area via its humanitarian work: “This crew, just like all the other IHO crews, visits us daily to provide various health services. I obtained cold medicine from them just two days ago. They treated us humanely when we were in dire need of their services, yet Israel killed them”.

She says that the strike is intended “to put more pressure on us”. “I was driven out of Meiss El Jabal to Dahieh at the beginning of the aggression, and then from Dahieh to here. It seems that nowhere is safe. We didn’t feel this way during the July 2006 aggression, which I remember well. Today, I am witnessing another level of barbarity,” she explains. She does not want to flee again “because nowhere is safe”. She considers the targeting part of an effort to “pressure us as civilians in the context of military warfare and because we are seen as a milieu supportive of the resistance”. This view is common among the residents that the Legal Agenda met.

In his interview with the Legal Agenda, one IHO member describes the attack as “barbaric, mobbish, and contrary to all humanitarian and international charters”. He emphasizes that the site “is civilian – there is no military or security aspect to the work there. Clearly marked ambulances come and go conspicuously and in public”. “The disrespect for relief and emergency aid work that we have seen during the aggression, we are now seeing in a residential location sheltering displaced people,” he explains.

Escalating War Crimes

In addition to the martyring of 97 emergency and health workers, more than 10 hospitals have been damaged. Bint Jbeil Hospital was rendered inoperative on Monday when its roof and glass panels were damaged by a strike on an adjacent abandoned home.

Personnel of the Lebanese Civil Defense, the Al Risala Association for Health Care, and the Lebanese Succour Association, as well as the IHO, have been martyred. Today, a Lebanese Army team and a Lebanese Red Cross team were targeted in the Taybeh area while on their way to evacuate wounded people. One of the Lebanese Army personnel was martyred and another wounded.

Rescue and emergency aid crews from the IHO Civil Defense have suffered a large share of the attacks, with 53 medics martyred and 136 wounded, 10 facilities directly targeted, and 41 vehicles damaged or destroyed, according to data that the directorate shared with the Legal Agenda.

The IHO Civil Defense has mourned 31 martyrs among its personnel in just the past four days. Yesterday alone, 11 medics were killed: seven in Bachoura and four in two strikes on the IHO center in southern Aitaroun and the clinic adjacent to the center.

The Israeli aggression also prevented any ambulance from reaching eight medics from the IHO Civil Defense after they were targeted yesterday in Taybeh, in a consolidation of the policy of prohibiting any rescue work in southern Lebanon. With yesterday’s targeting of medics in Bachoura, this policy is now being extended to Beirut.

Article 9 and Article 10 of Additional Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions afford special protection to medical and relief crews. Article 11 also prohibits attacks on medical units and transports. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has set a broad definition of these transports[1] and their purposes.[2] This protection is not invalidated by a connection between these crews and Hezbollah.

This protection has its legal bases. Firstly, the law prohibits attacks on both “military and civilian” medical transports provided they are dedicated exclusively to medical purposes. In other words, a relief agency’s connection to a party to the conflict does not deprive it of legal protection as long as its work is limited to medical and relief purposes.

Secondly, the intended meaning of “military” vehicles is vehicles directly subordinate to organized armed groups. In non-international armed conflicts – which is how the current conflict in Lebanon is characterized – the ICRC deems that “organized armed group” refers exclusively to the armed or military branch of a non-state party, i.e. to its armed forces in the functional sense. The ICRC also interprets membership in these groups narrowly such that it is restricted to persons whose continuous function is to participate directly in the hostilities.

Hence, contrary to what Israel is trying to promote and the accompanying propaganda, civilians do not lose their civilian status just by belonging to civilian organizations or bodies that are close to an armed organization. Rather, they remain legally protected. With the repetition and expansion of these attacks, we are facing an escalation in war crimes against civilians, and the Lebanese people are languishing under the weight of the humanitarian tragedy with every new strike.

The article is an edited translation from Arabic.

[1] “The term “medical transports” means any land vehicle (cars, trucks, trains etc.), ship, craft or aircraft assigned to transporting the wounded, sick and shipwrecked, medical and religious personnel, and medical equipment.”

[2] “The concept “medical purposes” should be understood in a broad sense. It covers not only the care given the wounded, sick and shipwrecked, but also any activities for the prevention of disease, blood transfusion centres, rehabilitation centres for medical treatment and dental treatment.”