Three emergency workers were killed and two wounded in an Israeli attack on a civil defence team battling a fire in the country’s south on Saturday, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
“Israeli enemies targeted the Lebanese civil defense team that was extinguishing a fire in the village of Fraoun caused by recent Israeli attacks, resulting in the martyrdom of three emergency responders,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.
Two others were injured, one of them seriously, the statement said, adding that the death toll was provisional.
Lebanon’s civil defence department said in a statement that three of its employees were killed “in an Israeli attack that targeted a firefighting vehicle after the end of a firefighting operation.”
The Health Ministry said in its statement that it “condemns this blatant Israeli attack, which targeted a team of an official body of the Lebanese state.”
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group, in support of ally Hamas, has exchanged almost daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces since the Palestinian group launched an attack on Israel on October 7, triggering a war in the Gaza Strip.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned Saturday’s attack, saying “This new aggression against Lebanon is a gross violation of international law… and humanitarian values.”
Hezbollah’s ally, the Amal Movement, said two of its members were among the dead. It said they were killed “while performing their humanitarian and national duty while defending Lebanon and the south.”
The Health Ministry said the attack was “the second of its kind against an emergency team in less than 12 hours.”
‘Repeatedly, intentionally’
Earlier on Saturday, the ministry said two emergency workers from the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee were injured when they were “deliberately targeted by the Israeli enemy” as they were on their way to put out a fire in Qabrikha, a city in southern Lebanon, causing their vehicle to veer off course.
Several combat groups operate health centers and emergency response operations in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah on Saturday announced a series of attacks on Israeli troops and targets near the border, including with Katyusha rockets and “explosive-laden drones”, some of them in response to “Israeli enemy attacks” on south Lebanon.
Lebanon’s national news agency said Israel carried out air strikes and shelling on several areas in the south of the country.
The Israeli military said it had identified “projectiles” coming from Lebanon, intercepting some of them, and added that “several UAVs (drones) have been identified coming from Lebanese territory”.
It said the air force attacked “Hezbollah military infrastructure and a launcher” in the Qabrikha area, while its artillery struck several other areas in south Lebanon.
Cross-border violence has killed about 614 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters, as well as 138 civilians, according to an AFP count.
On the Israeli side, which includes the Golan Heights, officials have announced the deaths of at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians.
Lebanon’s Health Minister Firas Abiad said in a statement that 27 emergency workers and health staff had been killed and 94 others injured since October “due to the (Israeli) aggression”.
Two hospitals and 21 health centres have been “targeted”, while 32 fire or ambulance vehicles have been “put out of service or partially damaged”, the statement said, urging an end to the “repeated and deliberate targeting of health workers and civilians”.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
