Israel launches series of attacks on Lebanese paramedic, civil defense organizations, killing 20

One soldier in the Lebanese military was killed and another injured on Thursday morning by a missile launched from an Israeli drone on Taybeh in south Lebanon which targeted soldiers as well as Red Cross staff in the area, the military confirmed in a statement.

Ali Jaber, head of the civil defense authority in the area told Mada Masr that three volunteers with the Lebanese Red Cross were also injured in the attack which targeted the group as they were delivering provisions including food and water to the residents of the area. 

The attack was the latest in the latest of a series of targeted operations against groups responsible for public safety in which Israel has killed 20 civil defense and paramedics over the last two days in Beirut and in Lebanon’s south. 

In central Beirut, Israel fired a direct missile at a civil defense center in the early hours of Thursday morning, killing seven civil defense workers. The strike, which took place shortly after midnight, was conducted without warning. 

The civil defense center in the Bashoura neighborhood belonged to the Islamic Health Authority, a Hezbollah-affiliated paramedic and civil defense organization which has operated across Lebanon for years to provide life-saving services to communities. 

The center was located on the second storey of a tower block in a crowded residential area on Selim Salem street. In images shared online in the aftermath of the attack, flames could be seen burning within the hollowed out floor of the building which had sustained severe damage in the strike. 

“You can see that the rest of the building is intact, and that only the flat belonging to the center is damaged,” said Sadeq Hamieh, the director of training at the center, speaking to Al-Jadeed channel overnight. “It is a blatant attack.”

Those killed in the Wednesday missile fire included officers responsible for operations and equipment in Beirut, as well as volunteer paramedics, the agency said in a statement mourning the death of its staff members on Thursday morning. 

The health authority, as well as the Amal-affiliated Islamic Mission Scouts, have been heavily targeted by Israeli airstrikes in south Lebanon for months.

Paramedics and civil defense teams working with the Islamic Health Authority were targeted intensively throughout Wednesday and into Thursday morning by Israeli strikes. Ten were killed in Israeli fire on Aytaroun, Odaisseh and Aynata, areas near the sites of clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli forces attempting to invade the country at the southern border on Wednesday. 

At least eight Israeli soldiers were killed on Wednesday, the first day of direct clashes at the border, according to figures announced by the Israeli military.

On Thursday morning, three more of the authority’s staff members were killed in airstrikes on Arnoun, a village further north in Nabatieh. “I’m proud that he made me the mother of a martyr,” Amina Ajmeh, the mother of Mohamed Qassas who was killed in the airstrike on Arnoun, said to Mada Masr. Ajmeh said her son was killed while doing the humanitarian work to which he dedicated his life — working to retrieve those left trapped underneath the rubble in the aftermath of Israeli airstrikes and distributing bread and other rations for those still living in Arnoun. 

The Islamic Mission Scouts, a paramedic group affiliated with the Amal Movement, was also  directly targeted and mourned three of its paramedics in a statement on Thursday. 

Elsewhere in the Lebanese capital, Israel launched 17 airstrikes on the southern suburbs overnight, furthering extensive destruction to the residential area which housed tens of thousands. Sites including Chiyeh, the American neighborhood and a major intersection between Jamous Street and Sfeir were targeted until dawn on Thursday. 

Forty-five people were killed in Israeli attacks across the country on Wednesday, the Lebanese Health Ministry said, including five in the northeastern governorate of Baalbek-Hermel and six in the Beqaa Valley. The ministry said over 2,000 people have been killed since October, when a lower-grade exchange of fire between Hezbollah and Israel began. 

Hezbollah forces continued to push back against Israeli forces at the border on Thursday morning after Israel announced its intention on Monday to launch a ground invasion into southern Lebanese territory.  Clashes continued at sites in Bint Jbeil including Aita al-Shaab and Maroun al-Ras, the group said.

It also launched missile salvos at soldiers moving in the Misgav Am settlement which lies at the border, opposite Lebanon’s Odaisseh, according to a Thursday morning statement. The area was the site of an attempted Israeli incursion into Lebanese land on Wednesday. 

Israeli media reported that 10 missiles were launched from Lebanon toward the Qiryat Shmona settlement and toward upper Galilee. 

With concerns high that Israel’s escalation on Lebanon could spill over into full regional war, Israel targeted the Mezzeh suburb, located in the Syrian capital of Damascus on Wednesday night, killing three, according to Syrian state media.

Yemen’s Houthi forces, meanwhile, announced on Thursday morning that they had launched a drone which reached Tel Aviv.