Lebanese doctor recalls one of ‘worst nightmares’ after pager attacks

A Lebanese doctor said Thursday that the cases he had treated in the hospital following the Israeli attack on Hezbollah’s telecommunications systems were some of the worst he had ever seen.

“It was one of the worst nightmares, not just for me, but all [medical workers] in Beirut” and around Lebanon, Dr. Elias Warrak told Al Arabiya News in an interview.

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A two-day Israeli operation started on Tuesday when pagers used by Hezbollah members and fighters exploded in their hands, pockets and elsewhere. The Lebanese health ministry said at least 37 people were killed, and close to 3,000 more were wounded. The majority of the casualties are believed to be Hezbollah members or fighters, but there were a number of civilian deaths and casualties as well.

Warrak, an ophthalmologist at the Mount Lebanon University Hospital in Beirut, said there were “a lot of cases of badly damaged eyes.” In most of the cases, one of the two eyes wasn’t able to be saved, and Warrak said he and other doctors were forced to remove a “big number” of eyes.

“We did our best to try to save as much as we could.”

Pagers were sent a message and beep noise by what is believed to be Israeli spyware. Seconds later, the devices exploded across the entire country, with some reports suggesting pagers in Syria and Iraq also were detonated.

The Iranian ambassador was wounded in the attack as well, but it is unclear if he had a pager or if one of his aides had it.

Warrak recalled that the scenes he witnessed this week reminded him of the “bad days of the civil war in Lebanon.

Lebanon experienced a 15-year civil war from 1975-1990. “We had some bad cases [during the civil war], but nothing to compare with these two days,” he told Al Arabiya News.

In recent years, Lebanon has witnessed several crises, including a financial collapse and one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosions in modern history, that have badly strained the healthcare system.

Nevertheless, Warrak said workers in the medical field had experienced so many wars and crises that it had helped manage the large number of casualties received this week.

Additionally, the Lebanese government has implemented a plan in hospitals over the last couple of months across Lebanon that prepares for worst-case scenarios in the event of an all-out war with Israel. “We hope we don’t need to go there, but all scenarios have been explained to hospital staff, specifically at university hospitals,” he said.

Warrak also highlighted the Lebanese doctors who were forced to work abroad after the 2019 financial collapse in the country. He said most of them are still part-time in Lebanon, so they work abroad for a few weeks and then return for another few weeks. “Hopefully, this will come to an end soon enough, and hopefully, this ugly war will not expand to a regional war,” he said.