When the airstrike took place, Mohammed was handing out hot meals to his elderly neighbors – something he and his friends had been doing since Israel’s last invasion of Lebanon on October 1.

The 29-year-old civil engineer stood about 5 meters from the explosion that destroyed a house in his village in southern Lebanon.

Layers of skin were singed across his forehead and cheeks, leaving his face raw and pink. His hands were charred. His abdomen has third-degree burns. Two weeks later, he radiates pain and trauma, but wants to tell his story.

“It was all black, there was smoke everywhere,” he said in a low voice. “It took about a minute. Then I started to recognize my surroundings. I noticed that my two friends were still alive but bleeding a lot. It took people about five minutes to get us out. »

Mohammed recounts the horrors from his bed at the Nabih Berri government hospital, perched atop a hill in Nabatieh. It is one of the largest cities in the south, located just 11 km from the border with Israel, as the crow flies. Before the war, around 80,000 people lived there.

Mohammed says there was no warning before the strike – “not at all, not to us, not to our neighbors, not to the person who was hit inside the house.”

That person was a police officer, he said, who was killed in the attack.

“We are not soldiers,” he said, “we are not terrorists. Why are we affected? The affected areas are all civilian areas.

Mohammed will return home to his village, Arab Salim, once freed, although he remains under fire. “I have nowhere to go,” he said. “If I could (leave), I would. There is no room.

As we tour the hospital, another airstrike sends staff rushing to a balcony to check what was hit this time. The hospital offers a panoramic view of gray smoke rising from heights about 4 km away.

Shortly after, a few floors down, in the emergency room, the wail of a siren warns of the arrival of casualties – following this airstrike. It had hit Mohammed’s village, Arab Salim.

A woman is rushed out on a stretcher with a bloody face. She is followed by her husband, who hits a wall in frustration before collapsing in shock. The doctors disappear behind closed doors to examine him.

Minutes later, hospital director Dr. Hassan Wazni informed staff that she had a ruptured artery and needed to be transferred to a specialized vascular center at a hospital further north.

“She needs it immediately,” he says, as cries of pain rise from the exam room. “Talk to Saida (a nearby town). If everything is okay, let’s take her immediately, because she can’t wait.”

The hospital receives 20 to 30 victims of Israeli airstrikes every day. Most are civilians, but no one is turned back. “We welcome all the patients, all the injured and all the martyrs who come,” he said. “We don’t discriminate between them.”

Dr. Wazni has not left the hospital since the war began. Behind his desk, in his office, he opens a pack of cigarillos. “I think there’s nothing wrong with breaking some rules in war,” he said with an apologetic smile.

He struggles to pay his salaries and find 1,200 liters of fuel per day to run the generators that power the hospital. “We don’t get anything from the government,” he said. “He doesn’t have it.”

His fuel is espresso, which he offers us several times.

With 170 beds, Nabih Berri is the city’s main public hospital, but now has only a reduced staff of 25 patients. The sick and injured brought here are quickly transferred to hospitals in safer areas further north. Staff say there have been “many strikes” near Nabih Berri. When we visited, there was broken glass inside the lobby.

Nabatieh has been under fire for more than a month.

The municipality building exploded two weeks ago, killing Mayor Ahmad Kahil and 16 others. At the time, he was holding a meeting to coordinate the distribution of aid. As we pass the ruins, bales of flatbread remain visible on the floor of a destroyed ambulance.

The massive strike brought down several neighboring buildings – a block is missing from the landscape.

Also missing is an Ottoman-era market – the heart of Nabatieh – which was destroyed the same day. Centuries of history have been reduced to rubble, heritage reduced to dust.

The old market, or souk, was a treasure trove of Hussein Jaber, 30, who is part of the government’s emergency services. He and his men, some of whom are volunteers, take us there for a brief visit. They drive at high speed – the only way to get around Nabatieh.

“We were born and raised here,” Hussein says, pointing to slabs of concrete and twisted metal. “We have been here since we were children. The souk means a lot to us. It’s really sad to see it like this. It contains memories of the past and the beautiful days we spent with the people of this city.

Like Dr. Wazni, Hussein and his colleagues stood by the people, despite the risks. More than 110 emergency workers and rescue workers were killed in Israeli attacks in Lebanon last year, according to Lebanese government figures – most in the past month. Some attacks involve “apparent war crimes,” according to international campaign group Human Rights Watch.

Hussein lost a colleague and friend this month in an airstrike 50 meters from their civil defense post, where they sleep with mattresses against the windows. The deceased, Naji Fahes, was 50 years old and the father of two children.

“He was enthusiastic and strong and loved helping others,” Hussein told me. “Even though he was older than us, he was the one rushing to go on missions, to be with people and help them. »

He died as he lived.

When the airstrike took place, Naji Fahes was standing outside the station, ready to go on a mission.

While Hussein speaks, we have company. An Israeli drone circles in the sky, then gets lower and louder. The insistent drone of the drone competes with his voice. “We hear it 90% of the time,” he says. “We think it’s directly above us now. Most likely, he is watching us.

As for Hezbollah, its presence in the city is invisible.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told us that they “operate only against the terrorist organization Hezbollah, and not against the Lebanese population.”

Israel says its fight is “against the terrorist organization Hezbollah, rooted in the population and civilian infrastructure.”

A spokesperson said the country “takes numerous measures to mitigate harm to civilians, including advance warnings”, although there was no warning for the airstrike that injured Mohammed, nor for the attack that killed the mayor.

In five and a half hours, in this once bustling city, we saw two people on foot, in the wilderness. They both ran away, not wanting to talk. During our visit, a drone was broadcasting messages from the Israeli army ordering people to leave immediately.

It is estimated that only a few hundred remain here, unwilling or unable to move elsewhere. They are mostly old people and poor people, and they will live or die with their city.

And Hussein and his team will be there to help them. “We’re like a safety net for people,” he says. “We will stay and we will continue. We will be next to civilians. Nothing will stop us.

Additional reporting by Wietske Burema and Angie Mrad