NABATIEH, Lebanon — The men sat on a terrace spending what little free time they had passing a sweetly fragrant hookah pipe. They kept their cellphones at hand and listened idly for the next airstrike.
These medics once had their own base, but they were forced to decamp to this small hospital some eight miles from the Israeli border, after the buildings around it were hit. They joined the more the 1 million displaced by fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
In between responding to Israeli airstrikes, medics look out over Nabatieh in southern Lebanon. (Photos by Guy Peterson/For The Washington Post)
The new quarters are cramped and poorly equipped, but they do offer sweeping views of Nabatieh, a once-humming city in southern Lebanon that Israeli evacuation warnings and airstrikes have made a ghost town.
It’s here that dozens of volunteers eat, sleep and pray while looking after the few remaining citizens who have been unable or unwilling to leave.
