Israel is systematically dismantling healthcare infrastructure in southern Lebanon. Hospitals have been hit. Ambulances have been targeted. Medical supply routes have been cut. The pattern is documented by Doctors Without Borders, the Lebanese Red Cross, and multiple international monitoring organizations.

This is not collateral damage. When a hospital is struck, it can be an accident. When multiple hospitals are struck, supply lines are severed, and ambulances are hit repeatedly, it becomes a pattern that requires explanation.

The Geneva Conventions provide explicit protections for medical facilities and personnel during armed conflict. These protections exist because the alternative — a battlefield where the wounded cannot be treated — is a form of cruelty that the international community decided decades ago was beyond the pale.

Southern Lebanon’s healthcare system was already fragile before the current conflict. The country’s economic collapse had degraded medical infrastructure across the board. What Israel’s operations are doing is destroying what remained.

The timing is relevant. While global attention focuses on the Iran war — on missile strikes, bridge destruction, and presidential addresses — the methodical elimination of healthcare capacity in southern Lebanon proceeds with minimal scrutiny.

The BBC documented this week that Israel has intensified attacks on areas not under Hezbollah control. The targeting of healthcare infrastructure in those areas raises questions that the Geneva Conventions were specifically designed to address.

Whether those questions will be asked by anyone with the authority to demand answers is, at this point, an open question.