It is Jad Deeb’s job to run towards the screams. Ever since Israel started carrying out airstrikes in southern Beirut, the 31-year-old IT specialist turned paramedic. The wreckage from Israeli airstrike is often so vast that resuces can take days. “We are used to smell of death,” said Deeb. “We are used to dismember bodies, we are used to decapitated bodies. We’ve seen the unimaginable.” The work is dangerous and Deeb believes getting caught directly in Israel’s crosshairs is the greatest danger. Allegations of fighters and weapons inside ambulances have arisen. Throughout this time, more than 200 first responders and medical workers have been killed in Lebanon. Many believe Israel’s military is targeting them. Deeb is haunted by the memory of an elderly man he found crushed on a couch and mangled bodies of seven children. The team at the emergency center in Beirut sleep at the center and are on call day and night. They distribute donated food, water, and medicine to displaced families. He believes that because Israel’s military has waged its war in Gaza for so long, it has free rein to apply the Gaza model in Lebanon. “What they did in Gaza, they’re trying to do here,” says Deeb. “All emergency workers, we are a target.” Throughout every search-and-rescue mission, Deeb thinks of his family. “If the war continues, it could be us one day soon,” he says. “Look at what happened in Gaza. We may have the privilege to survive now, but maybe the privilege will be gone soon.”
