Hospitals in southern Lebanon are under severe pressure as the conflict continues to generate mass casualties, displace families and damage health infrastructure. Medical teams are treating blast injuries, traumatic amputations and other war-related wounds while also trying to keep services running for people who have been forced from their homes.
Al Jazeera reported that hospitals in the south are not only receiving the wounded, but also accommodating displaced civilians and, in some cases, sheltering staff inside hospital buildings so that essential services can continue. The report by Rory Challands from Beirut highlighted the human cost of the crisis through the story of Sana Khalil, a farm worker who became a double amputee after being caught in an Israeli drone strike on a banana plantation.
Her case illustrates a broader emergency that extends far beyond immediate trauma care. For civilians who survive severe blast injuries, the clinical pathway can include emergency surgery, infection management, wound closure, residual-limb care, pain control, psychological support, prosthetic assessment, physiotherapy and long-term rehabilitation. In a conflict-affected setting, each stage becomes more difficult when hospitals are damaged, staff are displaced and supply chains are interrupted.
The pressure on Lebanon’s health system has been building for weeks. Al Jazeera reported in April that Israeli attacks had killed 53 medical workers, destroyed 87 ambulances or medical centres and forced five hospitals to close, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health. The report also noted that Jabal Amel University Hospital in Tyre had been struck multiple times and that emergency admissions had risen sharply as displacement increased.
The World Health Organization has also raised concern about the impact of attacks on health care in Lebanon. In mid-April, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said strikes near Tebnine Government Hospital damaged one of southern Lebanon’s busiest trauma centres and injured 11 workers. Anadolu Agency reported that WHO had recorded 133 attacks on health care facilities since the start of the March escalation, with hospitals, primary health centres and emergency equipment affected.
For prosthetics and orthotics professionals, the implications are significant. Traumatic limb loss in conflict zones requires much more than emergency amputation surgery. Survivors need coordinated rehabilitation, early residual-limb management, contracture prevention, mobility training, appropriate prosthetic design and repeated follow-up. Without these services, patients may face preventable complications, reduced independence and long-term exclusion from work, education and family life.
Sana Khalil’s story also highlights the civilian character of many rehabilitation needs in modern conflict. Farmers, children, older people, health workers and displaced families can all become long-term rehabilitation patients overnight. A double amputation is not only a surgical outcome; it is a life-changing injury that requires years of clinical, psychological and social support.
The crisis in southern Lebanon therefore demands more than emergency medical response. Hospitals need protection, staff need safe working conditions, and patients with traumatic injuries need access to structured rehabilitation pathways. That includes prosthetic and orthotic services, physiotherapy, psychosocial care, community reintegration and long-term funding for repairs, replacement devices and follow-up care.
For the wider IMEA rehabilitation community, Lebanon is another reminder that conflict creates disability on a large scale. Health systems must be prepared not only to save lives, but to support survivors after the acute phase has passed. The people leaving operating theatres today will need rehabilitation, prosthetic care and social inclusion for many years to come.