Beirut's Sahel Hospital staff hit back after Israel claims of Hezbollah gold bunker

Doctors say they simply want to treat patients as hospital closes after allegation of an underground stash worth millions of dollars

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At the Sahel General Hospital in Beirut's destroyed southern suburbs, the lights are on, the operating rooms are prepared but there are no patients in sight.

On Monday night, the 30 or so patients were urgently evacuated by staff after Israel made unsupported claims that beneath the hospital was a bunker stashed with millions of dollars of Hezbollah cash and gold, as well as a lair of the group's recently assassinated leader Hassan Nasrallah.

“We were here at the hospital working, treating patients and then the [Israeli] video came out,” said Dr Omar Mneimne, speaking to The National from an operating theatre. “Obviously, we [have been] living in terror for the past 24 hours.”

The hospital is independently run, but Hezbollah invited the media on a tour in a bid to refute the Israeli claims. Israel did not directly say the hospital would be attacked, instead stoking tensions by calling on Lebanese people to go there and retrieve their money.

The medical team worked for seven hours overnight to move patients to hospitals across the region that could care for their specific conditions.

“I don't know what to say,” said another doctor, Mohamed Zaraket. “You saw the hospital. It's a hospital for the Lebanese people, not for any political side. It was a shock for us.”

The Sahel Hospital is in Beirut's southern suburbs, which have been flattened in Israel's indiscriminate pursuit of Hezbollah, its arch nemesis. Only a few streets away, the roads are empty, while buildings smoke from recent Israeli bombardments.

The Israeli army later claimed that the entrance to the alleged bunker was in an adjacent building via a basement. However, journalists were also allowed into this building, the Al Ahmedi, where they saw a parking bay with empty boxes and two locked doors.

Hezbollah is a powerful force in Beirut's suburbs, but the area was also densely packed and home to hundreds of thousands of civilians from a variety of backgrounds – most of whom have now fled.

Despite that, there is fear that the Sahel could be bombed. Medical facilities have already been attacked in Lebanon, appearing to follow a well-trodden path of widespread Israeli destruction and death inflicted on hospitals in Gaza, with its near-constant claims that they harboured Hamas operatives or infrastructure.

Multiple hospitals in Lebanon have ceased their work after coming under direct Israeli attack, while more than 150 health workers have been killed in Israel’s bombardment of the country.

“At first, we thought they were just slogans to scare us, but when you see what's happening in Gaza, you start thinking maybe they'll do the same. We didn’t trust it,” said Halimah El Annan, nursing and audit team leader.

She took The National on a tour of the hospital's lower floors, eerily quiet with its morgue empty, oxygen tanks on display, operating theatres ready for work – but with no one to treat.

Staff scoffed at the Israeli claims, with one doctor saying “there's no gold and there's no money under the ground”. The Israeli army's Arabic language spokesman Avichay Adraee said the alleged shelter was stocked with hundreds of millions of US dollars, adding the site was being monitored by Israel's ever-present aerial assets.

“It’s a private hospital, no help from any political party. If I didn’t trust it, I wouldn’t be working here,” said Ms El Annan. “I trust it even more than my own home. I know it’s a safe hospital, but when you see what's happening in Gaza – children dying – nothing feels safe any more.”

Already the situation was incredibly difficult for the hospital. The streets around it are regularly attacked, endangering staff, with only the emergency room operating. Patients were previously able to access urgent surgical procedures, dialysis and chemotherapy, but these have had to stop now the hospital has closed.

One of the issues staff faced in evacuating patients is that not every hospital in the region is equipped to treat certain conditions. For instance, it is not straightforward to find somewhere to administer dialysis.

Staff say they worked under the constant threat of something happening to them, dealing with cases they were not used to working on, such as injuries from explosions.

“Of course it's extremely hard, it's very stressful,” said Dr Mneimne. “It's stressful for the community, for the whole country and us as a medical team. But what are you going to do? You have to do what you need to do.”

Now the Sahel is closed because of the security threat and medical staff are exasperated – all they want to do is treat their patients.

“The loss of this hospital would be a huge disservice to the community here,” said Dr Mneimne. “This is a hospital which provides care to underprivileged people. This hospital has been working for 40 years.”

Ms El Annan has been working at the hospital since 1985. She cannot imagine ever leaving it. “We stay for the patients. It’s impossible for me to think about leaving them and walking away,” she said. “It would be a betrayal to our people, to our families.”