From Emergency Care to Safe Deliveries: Keeping a Lifeline Open During Conflict
During the 2026 escalation in southern Lebanon, hospitals became lifelines for communities facing displacement, insecurity, and growing barriers to healthcare. By 16 August 2026, 17 hospitals had been affected, and three had closed completely. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the escalation also resulted in 216 attacks on healthcare, causing 135 deaths and 416 injuries.
Despite these challenges, Jabal Amel Hospital in Tyre remained operational, continuing to provide emergency, surgical, dialysis, maternity, and other essential health services for thousands of people affected by the conflict.
With support from the Lebanon Humanitarian Fund (LHF), Action Against Hunger helped vulnerable women access safe deliveries at Jabal Amel Hospital, ensuring that financial hardship and displacement did not prevent them from receiving essential maternal healthcare during one of the most difficult periods in recent years.
"Our Place Was Here"
For nearly three months, Dr. Abbas, Head of the Emergency Department at Jabal Amel Hospital, barely left the facility.
Outside, airstrikes shook the city. Inside, doctors, nurses, and support staff worked around the clock to keep one of southern Lebanon's main referral hospitals running. "Whether it was a woman giving birth, someone suffering a heart attack, a child needing urgent care, or a patient requiring surgery or dialysis, we continued providing these services despite everything happening around us," he recalls.
For Dr. Abbas, remaining at the hospital meant living under constant uncertainty. "Every time you move around the city, you feel there could be an airstrike on the road you're taking. At the same time, you're constantly worried about your family, knowing there is nothing you can do.
" Yet the fear never outweighed his sense of duty. "You learn medicine so you can stand beside people when they need you. Especially as an emergency physician, when there is a conflict or any catastrophe, my place is here. My duty is to help people."
That commitment was tested when the violence reached the hospital itself.
After briefly falling asleep between shifts, Dr. Abbas was awakened by the sound of missiles. At first, he assumed another nearby strike had shaken the building. Only when a colleague entered covered in dust did he realize the hospital had been hit.
Within minutes, the emergency department was receiving casualties.
"There was no time to think," he says. "I immediately started triaging patients and identifying those who needed life-saving care."
The following morning, hospital staff were already clearing rubble, covering shattered windows, and reopening damaged departments.
"We removed the rubble, cleaned everything, and prioritized making intensive care operational again. The hospital never stopped working."
Among the many patients he treated, one memory remains impossible to forget.
Two brothers, aged 12 and 14, arrived alone after an airstrike. One was rushed into surgery while Dr. Abbas accompanied the other for a CT scan. Trying to comfort him, he gently asked where his parents were."The boy told me, 'They're still at home.'"
Dr. Abbas contacted the ambulance team that had transported them. The answer was devastating. Their parents had been killed and transferred to the morgue. The boys did not yet know. "They were only twelve and fourteen years old," he says. "It is very painful when parents die and children are left alone."
Another patient, a critically injured Syrian mother, spoke only about her three children before being taken into surgery. After learning they were alone at home, Dr. Abbas alerted the ambulance team, who located the children and brought them to safety. "For us, every patient carries a family," he says. "We do not only treat injuries."
Although the fighting has ended, its impact remains. "If I stop thinking of myself as a doctor for one minute and simply look at myself as a human being, this conflict affected me deeply."
Before the escalation, he spent his free time running and caring for his land. Today, he says he is still trying to regain that sense of normalcy.
When asked what kept the hospital functioning throughout months of violence, he does not speak about himself. "My team is amazing. Every person here is important. The cleaners, the staff who transport patients, the people carrying equipment and medicines. Without them, the hospital cannot function."
Before returning to work, he offers one final reflection: "We became doctors to be there for people when they need us most."
Ensuring No Woman Gives Birth Alone
For Lina, who began her career as a nurse and now works in the hospital's admissions department, the conflict revealed another side of the crisis: the growing financial barriers preventing families from accessing healthcare.
As the hospital's admissions focal point, Lina was often the first-person women spoke to when they were worried about how they would pay for their delivery. She worked closely with the Ministry of Public Health and Action Against Hunger to identify eligible cases, coordinate assessments, and secure financial assistance for vulnerable families. By helping women access support to cover delivery costs, she ensured that displacement, loss of income, and economic hardship did not prevent them from receiving essential maternal healthcare.
As the hospital's admissions focal point, Lina was often the first-person women spoke to when they were worried about how they would pay for their delivery. She worked closely with the Ministry of Public Health and Action Against Hunger to identify eligible cases, coordinate assessments, and secure financial assistance for vulnerable families. By helping women access support to cover delivery costs, she ensured that displacement, loss of income, and economic hardship did not prevent them from receiving essential maternal healthcare.
"I had responsibility. I couldn't leave," she says.
While many families fled the area, Lina remained at the hospital, returning home only occasionally to check on her family before coming back. Believing the hospital was the safest place available, she brought her 18-year-old daughter to stay with her.
That belief changed the day the hospital was struck.
Lina was sitting in her office when the explosion sent equipment and files across the room.
"For a moment, I couldn't hear anything," she recalls. "I only heard my daughter's voice."
Her daughter had been injured. "At that moment, I wasn't a hospital worker. I was a mother worrying about her child. You feel like it is the end of life."
After ensuring her daughter was safe, Lina joined colleagues in helping the hospital recover.
"We started cleaning immediately and removing anything that blocked our work. We kept receiving patients during the same hour." The experience stayed with her, but so did her commitment. "After the attack, I realized there is no completely safe place," she says. "But as a health worker, you cannot leave your post. You stay, and you play your role."
As hospitals across southern Lebanon sustained damage and some closed their doors, Jabal Amel remained one of the few facilities able to continue providing maternity and gynecological services.
At the peak of displacement, an estimated 13,500 pregnant women had been displaced across Lebanon. Many women arriving at the hospital had fled their homes and were living in schools, collective shelters, or temporary accommodation.
Lina witnessed the financial consequences firsthand. "The conflict itself was difficult, but the financial situation made it even harder for many families. Many people were displaced and lost their livelihoods. Covering the cost of healthcare became impossible for them."
Through Action Against Hunger's LHF-funded project, vulnerable women were able to access safe deliveries at Jabal Amel Hospital free of charge, reducing one of the main barriers to seeking institutional maternal healthcare.
Some women arrived specifically because they had heard support was available.
"They told us they were displaced and living in schools or other temporary shelters. They came because they knew they could receive help."
For Lina, the impact of the support extended beyond the financial assistance itself.
"You should see the relief on women's faces when they know they can give birth safely without worrying about how they will pay."
After nearly four decades at Jabal Amel Hospital, her message remains simple:
"No woman should have to face childbirth alone."
Keeping a Lifeline Open
Through support to three hospitals, including Jabal Amel Hospital, Action Against Hunger's Lebanon Humanitarian Fund-funded project helped vulnerable women access safe deliveries while strengthening referral pathways between communities, primary healthcare centres, and hospitals. The project also connected families with essential maternal and child nutrition services, including maternal nutrition support, infant and young child feeding counselling, nutrition screening, and supplementation for vulnerable children and pregnant and breastfeeding women.
For the women who arrived uncertain whether they could afford to give birth safely, that support meant access to care when they needed it most.
And for the healthcare workers who continued working, even after their hospital came under attack, it meant being able to keep that care available.
Because in a crisis, keeping a hospital open is about more than treating patients. It is about preserving a lifeline for entire communities.
