Israel strikes Beirut, killing hundreds as Lebanon crisis deepens

Emergency workers with shovels, crowbars and little else dug through broken concrete in Beirut as Israel’s latest wave of strikes tore into densely packed neighborhoods and trapped civilians under debris. The scene captured the gap between the scale of the bombardment and the rudimentary rescue response on the ground, where survivors searched in dust and darkness while medics struggled to reach the wounded.

The strikes killed 203 people and wounded more than 1,000 across Lebanon, deepening a crisis that had already drained hospitals, emptied ambulance stocks and pushed exhausted rescue teams to the edge. The World Health Organization said the speed and scale of the destruction left Lebanon’s already strained health system overwhelmed, a warning that matched what was unfolding in the capital, where whole buildings had been reduced to rubble and ordinary residents were left improvising their own rescue efforts.

Lebanon’s health ministry had already said the wider conflict had killed thousands and injured many more since fighting began on October 8, 2023. By October 28, 2024, the ministry said Israeli attacks in Lebanon had killed 2,710 people and injured 12,592 others, a toll that shows how the Beirut strikes fit into a broader war of attrition that has steadily widened from the border into the country’s center.

The escalation began after Hezbollah started firing rockets into Israel almost daily in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Israel answered with a September 2024 covert operation that used exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, wounding more than 3,000 people and killing 12, before a wider air campaign that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other commanders. Those attacks hardened the conflict into a national emergency, with Beirut no longer insulated from the violence that had already devastated Hezbollah strongholds in the south and southern Beirut.

The human cost has fallen heavily on the health system itself. The World Health Organization said nearly 230 health workers had been killed in Lebanon since the start of the Gaza war, a staggering loss for a country where medics have been forced to work amid shortages, constant danger and repeated strikes. In Beirut, the emergency response has become part of the disaster, with rescue crews searching for the missing while the number of dead and wounded keeps rising.