BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s crisis-battered health care system is now preparing for the possibility of a devastating wider conflict with Israel, the country’s health minister told The Associated Press in an interview Monday.
Israel's military and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah militant group have traded strikes since the current war in Gaza began, but tensions have escalated since an Israeli strike in a Beirut suburb killed a top Hezbollah commander last month. Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate.
Lebanon’s caretaker government, amid diplomatic maneuvering for de-escalation, is trying to prepare for the worst with a tattered budget, a deeply divided parliament and no president.
“The Lebanese health system had to adjust to multiple crises,” caretaker Health Minister Firas Abiad said. Health care facilities cut costs by keeping inventory at a minimum, leaving little backup for emergencies, he said. Now inventory has been built up to four months' worth of critical supplies.
“We hope that all the efforts we are doing for preparing for this emergency go to waste" and a wider war is averted, Abiad said. "The best thing that we want is for all of this to turn out to be unnecessary.”
Inside Gaza, the health system has been decimated. Abiad said Lebanese health authorities take the possibility of hospitals being targeted in a wider conflict “very seriously.”
Already, he said, almost two dozen paramedics and health care workers in southern Lebanon have been killed in Israeli strikes. They include paramedics from medical groups affiliated with Hezbollah and allied groups that have filled the gaps in areas with limited state services.
Israeli strikes have hit deeper into Lebanon in recent weeks, and sonic booms from military jets rattle Beirut. Much of the border region is in rubble.
The Mediterranean country’s health sector was once renowned as one of the best in the region. But Lebanon has faced compounding crises since 2019, including a fiscal one that followed decades of corruption and mismanagement. Other challenges include the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Beirut Port explosion that damaged or destroyed key healthcare infrastructure and dwindling international aid to help Lebanon host more than 1 million Syrian refugees.
Lebanese hospitals in 2021 were at breaking point, barely able to keep the lights on and short on medicine.
Abiad said the health sector has shown resilience before, and he hopes it will again.
“During the (port) blast, the system was able to absorb an excess of 6,000 casualties in a matter of 12 hours,” he said. “There is, I would say, a determination within our health care system to provide the needed care to all the people who require it."
But resilience might not be enough for the troubled country and its 6 million people. The financial crisis has left government agencies beholden to humanitarian organizations for cash injections and supplies.
Last week, the health ministry received 32 tons of emergency medical aid from the World Health Organization. But U.N. agencies and other humanitarian groups have had to reallocate funds from existing work to provide aid to about 100,000 people who have fled southern Lebanon since the current war in Gaza began.
Abiad said some issues are out of the ministry’s control, including securing fuel for electricity and petrol for ambulances, as well as supporting the almost 800,000 U.N.-registered Syrian refugees in the country.
Health care resources are not sufficient for refugees in particular, Abiad said: “The international community really has to pull its weight and chip in with this particular issue.”
FILE - Lebanese airport workers unload medical aid boxes, which are part of preparedness by the medical sector in Lebanon in case an all-out war breaks out between Israel and Hezbollah, Monday, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, at Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon,. Lebanon's healthcare, battered by years of crises, is scrambling with already stretched resources to prepare for a possible wider conflict with Israel, the country's health minister told the Associated Press in an interview Monday. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
FILE - Lebanon's Health Minister Firas Abiad speaks during a press conference on the first case of cholera, in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 7, 2022. Lebanon's healthcare, battered by years of crises, is scrambling with already stretched resources to prepare for a possible wider conflict with Israel, the country's health minister told the Associated Press in an interview Monday. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Thursday that leader Kim Jong Un supervised successful tests of two types of missiles — one designed to carry a “super-large conventional warhead” and the other likely for a nuclear warhead, as he ordered officials to bolster up his country’s military capabilities to repel United States-led threats.
The tests appear to be the same as the multiple missile launches that neighboring countries said North Korea performed Wednesday, extending its run of weapons displays as confrontations with the U.S. and South Korea escalate.
The official Korean Central News Agency said that Kim oversaw the launch of the country’s newly built Hwasongpho-11-Da-4.5 ballistic missile tipped with a dummy “4.5-ton super-large conventional warhead.” It said the test-firing was meant to verify an ability to accurately hit a 320 kilometer (200 mile) -range target, suggesting it’s a weapon aimed at striking sites in South Korea.
KCNA said Kim also guided the launch of an improved “strategic” cruise missile, a word implying the weapon was developed to carry a nuclear warhead.
After the tests, Kim stressed the need to continue to “bolster up the nuclear force” and acquire “overwhelming offensive capability in the field of conventional weapons, too," according to KCNA. It cited the Kim as saying that North Korea can thwart its enemies' intentions to invade only when it has strong military power.
KCNA released photos of a missile hitting a ground target. South Korea's military said later Thursday it assessed that both ballistic and cruise missiles fired by North Korea the previous day landed in the North's mountainous northeastern region.
North Korea typically test-launches missiles off its east coast, and it's highly unusual for the country to fire missiles at land targets likely because of concerns about potential damages on the ground if the weapons land in unintended areas.
Jung Chang Wook, head of the Korea Defense Study Forum think tank in Seoul, said North Korea likely aims to show it's confident about the the accuracy of its new ballistic missile with a high-powered warhead meant to attack ground targets. But Jung said North Korea hasn't acquired weapons that can penetrate deep into the earth and destroy underground structures.
The Hwasongpho-11-Da-4.5 ballistic missile's first known test occurred in early July. North Korea said the July test was successful as well, but South Korea's military disputed the claim saying one of the two missiles fired by North Korea travelled abnormally during the initial stage of its flight before falling at an uninhabited area near Pyongyang, the capital. North Korea hasn't released photos on the July launches.
North Korea has been pushing to introduce a variety of sophisticated weapons systems designed to attack both South Korea and the mainland U.S. to deal with what it calls its rivals’ intensifying security threats. Many foreign experts say North Korea would ultimately want to use its enlarged arsenal as leverage to win greater concessions in future dealings with the U.S.
Worries about North Korea deepened last week as it disclosed photos of a secretive facility built to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. Since late May, North Korea has also floated thousands of trash-carrying balloons toward South Korea, prompting the South to resume anti-North loudspeaker broadcasts at border areas.
Follow AP’s Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific
A TV screen shows a file image of North Korea's missile launch during a news program at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A TV screen shows a file image of North Korea's missiles launch during a news program at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A TV screen shows a file image of North Korea's missile launch during a news program at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A TV screen shows a file image of North Korea's missiles launch during a news program at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
This photo provided by the North Korean government, shows what it says a launch of an improved strategic cruise missile at an undisclosed place in North Korea Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, oversees a launch of, what it says, the country’s newly built Hwasongpho-11-Da-4.5 ballistic missile at an undisclosed place in North Korea Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
