BEIRUT: Wael Mousawi, a 35-year-old Civil Defense responder in Tyre, says he has spent weeks moving “between death and death,” pulling bodies from the rubble of flattened homes in southern Lebanon as rescue teams struggled to keep pace with the scale of destruction.
Paramedics and rescue workers across the country have been caught in the crossfire of the latest war between Israel and Hezbollah, rushing into areas civilians are fleeing, searching for survivors and navigating roads cratered by airstrikes.
The dangers have slowed rescue efforts, leaving victims trapped beneath rubble for days and further straining already stretched healthcare systems.
“There was no protection for paramedics,” Mousawi told Arab News. “We kept going because people depended on us. These were our communities — our families, our friends.”
First responders carry a body recovered from the rubble into an ambulance at the site of an Israeli airstrike in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on April 8, 2026. (AFP)
