After Gaza devastation, Israeli attacks on Lebanon’s health care system feel familiar for many

SIDON, Lebanon — Two years ago, Dr. Mohammed Ziara watched Israel ravage Gaza’s health care system, shelling hospitals, striking ambulances and forcing patients to evacuate. Now Ziara — along with other medical workers, human rights groups and many civilians — warns that the same scenario is unfolding in Lebanon. Israel is pushing deep into the southern part of the country in its campaign against the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, a powerful militant force and political party that long has exercised de facto control over much of Lebanon’s Shiite community. To describe its strategy in this war, the Israeli military invokes the devastation it wrought in Gaza after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets over Beirut last month warning that after “great success in Gaza, a new reality is coming to Lebanon, too.” “I’ve lived this before,” Ziara, a burn surgeon from Gaza City, told The Associated Press on Thursday at the government hospital in the Lebanese port city of Sidon. “I cannot go back to Gaza now,” Ziara said. “But I can be here, in L

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