He counted himself as the last living soul in the five-room clinic, the only hospital serving this devastated swath of Lebanon's south. His surviving patients had already been evacuated.
The surgeon led a group of journalists over what remained: mangled debris, shredded walls and a roof punched through by an Israeli shell.
"Look what they did to this place," Dr. Fatah said, shaking his head. "Why in the world would the Israelis target a hospital?"
The probable answer was found a few hours later in a field nearby. Hidden in the tall grass were the burned remnants of a rocket-launcher.
Confronted with the evidence, Dr. Fatah admitted his hospital could have been used as a site from which to fire rockets into Israel.