Israel kills 3 Lebanese military soldiers on medical evacuation mission | 17 airstrikes on Beirut destroy 6-building residential complex

Three soldiers in the Lebanese military were killed by Israeli fire in the early hours of Thursday morning while conducting a mission to evacuate wounded people in the southern border district of Bint Jbeil, the military said in a statement. One of the military personnel killed was an officer, the statement said.

The incident came after Israel conducted another heavy bombardment campaign on the southwest of Beirut overnight.

The military personnel were directly targeted by an Israeli drone in Yater, according to a Lebanese military source speaking to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity, who added that after the attack a team from the Lebanese Red Cross went to the site to transfer the victims to the Tabneen Hospital in Nabatieh. 

Yater is a town from which many residents have been forcibly displaced since the area has been subject to heavy Israeli airstrikes in recent weeks. The town lies just a few kilometers north of Qouzah, Aita al-Shaab and Rameesh, border villages in south Lebanon which have been a focal point of fierce clashes between Hezbollah fighters and the Israeli military after the latter launched operations to invade Lebanon at the beginning of October.  

Hezbollah continued to clash with Israeli forces at border areas on Thursday morning, releasing a series of statements describing clashes “at zero distance” in Aita al-Shaab in which it said it had inflicted injuries within the ranks of Israeli troops. 

It also released a statement mourning the party’s deputy secretary general, Hashem Safieddine, who it said was killed in an “aggressive and criminal Zionist raid.” The Israeli military announced on Tuesday that it had assassinated Safieddine in the airstrike on Beirut on October 4.

The border towns of Khiyam and Deir Antar were bombed by Israel on Thursday morning, while the National News Agency reported that airstrikes had targeted a house in Yater amid a campaign of strikes on the villages of the Bint Jbeil and Sur districts on Wednesday night.

The names of the two soldiers killed in Yater were circulated in Lebanese media as Mohamed al-Nazal and Moussa Mahna, while the officer was named as Major Mohamed Farahat — an officer who was reported to have been responsible for repelling an attempt by Israel to fortify its occupation of the Shebaa farms in Lebanon’s south last year. 

Beirut, meanwhile, was subjected to the heaviest night of airstrikes the Lebanese capital has seen for weeks starting late on Wednesday night and continuing until the early hours of Thursday morning. 

Among the sites targeted in the hours-long campaign were the offices of the Mayadeen news channel. Representatives of the channel said it had already vacated its premises in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which have been targeted almost nightly for the past month. 

The media organization shared images showing the location on one of the upper floors of an apartment block gutted by a targeted airstrike which had blackened the walls. 

Also subjected to heavy bombing were residential areas in the Laylaki area of Beirut, a crowded residential neighborhood. Footage of the bombing captured live on Al-Jadeed television channel showed fire billowing several meters into the air which was visible across Beirut’s skyline. A residential complex made up of six buildings was reported to have been felled by the airstrikes, estimated to total 17 strikes.

The nearby neighborhood of Hadath was also targeted in the airstrikes on Beirut. 

As Israel continues to claim it is targeting Hezbollah facilities in its airstrikes, which have hit medical facilities in the south and paramedic facilities in Beirut as well as media organizations, United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Thursday that he had not seen evidence confirming the existence of a cache of money held by Hezbollah under a hospital in Beirut, according to Reuters. 

Austin indicated, however, continued cooperation from the US’ partners in Israel to obtain better information about what they were looking for.

The Israeli military claimed earlier this week that Hezbollah was hiding hundreds of millions of dollars under the Sahel Hospital in Haret Hreik in the southern suburbs of Beirut, saying it would not target it but that its aircraft would conduct reconnaissance and follow-up. 

After hospital administrators hosted a media tour of the hospital premises to refute the claims, the Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee instructed journalists to new places in the hospital’s vicinity — which also proved to be free of the gold and cash. 

Elsewhere in the country, bombing continued overnight in the south. The mayor of Burj Qalawiyeh and another citizen were killed in a Wednesday night airstrike which targeted them while they were on a motorbike visiting the site of another house in the vicinity that had been bombed, according to an internal security source in Bint Jbeil who spoke to Mada Masr on Thursday morning. 

The Lebanese Health Ministry said on Wednesday that as of Tuesday night, 2,574 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on the country since October 8 last year, and over 12,000 injured.