Burn unit to open in Turkish Hospital in Lebanon’s Sidon on Tuesday

By Wassim Seif El Din

BEIRUT (AA) – Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad said Monday that a burn unit in the Turkish Hospital in the southern city of Sidon will open on Tuesday to help treat injured people amid Israel’s ongoing assault on the country.

"A (burn) unit in the Sidon Turkish Trauma and Rehabilitation Hospital will open tomorrow,” Abiad told a press conference in Beirut.

“This hospital will be Lebanon’s reference for burn treatment," he added.

The Lebanese minister thanked Türkiye for the hospital project through the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA).

Abiad said the burn unit will include an emergency and injured section, two operation rooms, four intensive care units, four beds for burn treatment, and clinics for burn treatment and physical therapy.

Türkiye offered to build the hospital following the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006. The facility was built in 2010, but preparations are ongoing to put it into operation.

The Lebanese health minister said that eight hospitals in the country were forced out of service as a result of Israeli attacks on medical facilities.

Israel has escalated its air campaign in Lebanon since late September against what it claims are Hezbollah targets in an escalation from year-long cross-border warfare between Israel and the Lebanese group since the start of Israel’s brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip.

Nearly 3,000 people have been killed and more than 13,300 injured in Israeli attacks since October 2023, according to Lebanese health authorities.

Israel expanded the conflict by launching an incursion into southern Lebanon on Oct. 1 this year.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar