Israel’s nightly airstrikes on Beirut expand to include site near Rafik Hariri University Hospital

The Israeli military targeted several areas across Beirut last night, including launching an airstrike in the Ghobeiry area near the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, the largest in the capital.

The airstrike near the hospital killed 18 citizens, including four children, and injured 60 others, according to a statement issued by the Lebanese Health Ministry on Tuesday afternoon. 

Seventeen out of those injured were hospitalized, and seven were in critical condition, the ministry said in a morning statement.

The airstrike near the hospital, which is the largest public health facility in Beirut to be affected by Israel’s bombardment campaign so far, also severely damaged facilities in the hospital, the statement added, though the facility remained open to patients. 

The attack was part of a series of airstrikes launched by Israel on the crowded southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital starting late on Monday and continuing into the early hours of Tuesday morning. 

Other areas targeted in Beirut included the coastal Awzai area, where three consecutive strikes took place on Monday evening targeting the public beach and fishing port.

The Israeli military claimed that it was targeting Hezbollah fighters in the area. It has attacked various sites in the capital almost daily for the past month, pausing only for a few days and resuming the attacks on October 16.  

Reproducing a playbook familiar from its operations in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military claimed that it striked Hezbollah targets near the hospital, but denied targeting the hospital itself.

In an apparent threat to another hospital in Beirut, the Occupation military issued another statement on Monday evening saying it was going to “declassify” intelligence regarding the Sahel Hospital in Haret Hreik, also in the southern suburbs, claiming that Hassan Nasrallah’s  bunker, a “finance hub,” was located underneath the hospital and filled with “millions of dollars in gold and cash.”

Though the military claimed it would not target the hospital, saying that its air force would monitor the area and would not target the hospital itself, medical crews at the Sahel Hospital began to evacuate all departments of the facility, including workers and patients, hospital director Fady Alama told Mada Masr on Tuesday. 

Alama, who is also an MP for the Amal Movement’s Development and Liberation Bloc, said that the withdrawal came in preparation for an imminent Israeli airstrike. 

The hospital was already operating only as a field hospital to provide emergency care to those wounded in airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut over recent weeks, according to Alama. 

Alama stressed that the hospital is a private university health facility which has been serving Lebanese citizens for 40 years and  has “no connection to any institutions or parties,” adding that the Israeli claims of Hezbollah using the hospital for its operations are “lies, slander and false accusations.”

The claim regarding the supposed store of gold under the hospital came after Israel carried out a series of attacks on Sunday night on over 10 branches of the financial services association Al-Qard Al-Hassan, which is affiliated with Hezbollah. Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari warned on Sunday that the army would target the association’s infrastructure nationwide.

The military instructed residents in buildings located within a 500 meter radius of the branches to evacuate for their own safety.

The association, which provides customers who can provide a guarantor or a gold deposit with loans worth up to US$5000, has over 30 branches across Lebanon, most of which are located in central urban areas.

Alama told Mada Masr that a media tour was organized for local and international media outlets inside the Sahel Hospital on Tuesday morning in order to confirm the lies and slander of the Israeli army. According to 

Lebanese news outlet Al-Jadeed published a video of its tour showing the hospital’s operation rooms and  underground storage facilities, where medical supplies and “not bombs or missiles used by Hezbollah as the Israeli military says, but oxygen tanks for patients,” the outlet’s correspondent said.

Another press tour was also held in Rafik Hariri hospital on Tuesday at noon following the targeting of its vicinity to examine the material damage it sustained. 

Warnings also started to emerge from official Lebanese entities, namely the founding entity of the Lebanese Workers Union, which called on the international community to immediately cease what it called the “brutal attacks on healthcare centers in Lebanon.”

In its statement, the union also denounced the almost daily Israeli targeting of ambulance and healthcare crews, as well as the direct targeting of public and private hospitals.

According to the union, health facilities in areas of Mays al-Jabal, Marjayoun, Bint Jbeil, Tabneen, Baalbek, and other areas across Lebanon have been targeted. 

At least three hospitals in border areas in Lebanon have shut their doors and evacuated medical staff after direct attacks on medical teams took place.