Lebanon: Israeli attack endangers a healthcare system reliant on Hezbollah

On 1 October, Lebanon became the latest epicentre of the 2024 Middle East crisis after Israel launched a ground attack targeting the military and political group Hezbollah. The World Health Organization (WHO) says that Lebanon, a nation of 5.4 million people, has more than 3.5 million in need of aid1 and is already hosting 1.3 million Syrian and Palestinian refugees.

Economic collapse has further intensified the crisis, with the Lebanese lira devalued by over 98% from January 2023 to March 2024. This has delivered a hammer blow to people’s health: in a September 2023 poll by Gallup, 63% of respondents said that they had struggled to access or afford sufficient food over the past year. The same poll showed that satisfaction with the availability of good quality healthcare stood at 27% amid the mass migration of medical staff fleeing Lebanon, with shortages of key supplies and medicines as a result of economic and other struggles.2

The new Israeli attacks have seen a further one million people internally displaced in Lebanon, says Krystel Moussally, strategic medical adviser for the emergency response charity Médecins Sans Frontières. “With so many people displaced from [the …