Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Lebanon doctors say Israel is repeating Gaza's 'scorched earth policy'

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Lebanon doctors say Israel is repeating Gaza's 'scorched earth policy' · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Patching up Lebanon's victims of war is a long and
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: heartbreaking process, and right now there's a constant stream of them.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: This patient, like so many of the casualties, was wounded
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: in an Israeli air strike which struck in the dead
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: of night whilst he slept with his family. He now
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: has sixty five percent burns across his body, which will
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: require months of treatment. And the doctors tell us this
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: seeing rising numbers of casualties, not just civilians, but amongst
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: them many children. The medics are mostly volunteers. Among them
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: two British doctors, both of whom have worked in Gaza,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and a doctor in exile from Gaza, and they all
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: see alarming similarities between what's happening there and now what's
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: going on in Lebanon.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Is being done here is exactly the systemic destruction Foregulate
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: accubition as happen in Calca, started with evacuation of all
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: people displaced to the law and then systemic deliberate destruction
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: of all infrastructure, mainly the hospitals too.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: The doctors want more action from world leaders to ensure
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: health workers are protected. The International humanitory tarian law has
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: been ignored and nobody is doing anything about it.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: There's you know, i'd say.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: There's some words, a bit of you know, strong words occasionally,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: but as usual no action.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: And this is it feels like it's just become accepted.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Now that it's become that's okay, you know, it's accepted
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: to do that.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Doctor Pottercas set up the burns unit at Sidon's government hospital,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: and among his patients is a father whose teenage son
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: was killed and he was left badly burned. He shows
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: us a picture of his son Jad. I don't speak
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: about them.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: He's fifteen years old. I don't feel.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: No feeling.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: I lose my boy.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: He can barely talk with grief and shock. Another family
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: destroyed in the middle of the night, and he's overwhelmed
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: with loss. Right now, he says his home in central
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Beirute was one of two hit in a high rise
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: apartment block. All were civilians. This picture shows the family
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: at a relative's wedding. His wife an older teenage son
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: survived unharmed. Jad seen here on the right, was killed instantly.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: The Israeli military says it's targeting Hezbollah militants with precision strikes.
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: Israel liars Israel israel Al.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: Big liars.
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: They have to they have to kill all innocent people. Wife,
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: what's the target? To kill a little boy at fifteen
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: years old? What's the target? What's the point?
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: The fighting between Israeli troops and has Bola militants in
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: southern Lebanon has intensified dramatically over the past forty eight hours.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Anyone near Hezbolla operatives, facilities or weapons has been told
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: by the Israeli military they're putting their lives at risk.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Those targets include a string of petrol stations used by
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: civilians but linked to the Hezbola group. The Israeli Air
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Force has blown up the bridges across the Latani River.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: They're a vital connection for civilians between the south and
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: the rest of the country, but the Israeli military says
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: they were being used by Hezbollah as military supply routes.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Sky's data and forensics team has also tracked dozens of
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: attacks against medics and health centers. The Lebanese Health Ministry
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: says there've been more than one hundred that's resulted in
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: more than forty medics and first responders being killed. The
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: majority were with the Islamic Health Association which is affiliated
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: with Hezbola but works with the government's health ministry. Health workers,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: like civilians, are protected under international law, and deliberately targeting
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: them amounts to a war crime. Israel has said militants
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: are using health facilities as cover without providing evidence. It's
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a claim dismissed by Lebanon's health minister.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: And they are trying to justify their war crimes, and
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: they are trying to justify their aggression against healthcare workers.
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: But as I said that, as I mentioned, no words
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: and no claims can justify what they're doing. And history
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: talkss from what happened in Gasta, from what happened previously
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: in the previous war, and what happened all over the
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: past years.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: More than three hundred children, just like thirteen year old
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Fatima have been wounded in Israeli air strikes this month alone.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: She's being treated by British Palestinian doctor Hassan Aviusitta, who's
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: seeing high numbers of youngsters in his clinic.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: She's got lots of part of her skull and they've
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: become infected.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: The war had meant Fatima's family had already left their
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: home in the Bechel Valley they'd returned briefly to retrieve
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: some of their belongings. Out of the ten people in
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: the house, seven were children. She and three of her
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: cousins were wounded, Her father and aunt were killed.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: Scorched earth, which means making a place uninhabitable, invariably means
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: the destruction of the housystem, because in an urban environment,
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: this is the social anchor that if you get rid
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: of it, it becomes easier to ethnically close people. We
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: saw that in Gaza.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Fatima was playing with her young cousins when the bomb landed.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: The village had been identified by the Israeli military as
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: a Hezboler stronghold, but was almost entirely empty of residence.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Fatima and her mother are utterly distraught. Their lives have
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: changed beyond recognition. They've lost their home, the family's patriarch,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: and most of all, any hope of peace any time soon.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Alex Crawford Sky News in South Lebanon,