Lebanon Frayed nerves as medical workers face bombs and mystery calls

The airstrikes started just before noon.

- William Christou

The injured and the dead quickly followed. As the ground in the southern Lebanese town of Marjayoun began to shake from the relentless approach of Israeli bombs, Shoshan Mazraani let her muscle memory take over.

As the director of the public hospital's emergency room, she was well versed in the grim logistics of the triage procedures that follow a bombing. But after five hours of gruelling work, the din of the emergency room was interrupted by a long whistle. Then a blast, the doors of hospitals blown open, the windows shattering and cracks spreading across the hospital walls.

"When I heard the rocket, I thought it was coming to hit us. Then there was a tremendous pressure in the hospital, the doors buckled from it. I really thought the rocket had impacted us," she said.

Two airstrikes had landed just metres from the hospital on Monday last week, damaging its interior and forcing medical workers to stop work until they could figure out if they were under attack.

The airstrikes took Mazraani by surprise. Marjayoun, colloquially referred to as the beginning of the "Christian corridor" by UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon, had remained relatively untouched by fighting. As late as July, residents could be seen on scenic jogs, UN armoured personnel carriers passing them by and plumes of smoke rising from the hills just a few miles away.