A truck and ambulance burn after Israeli airstrikes hit a group of paramedics outside a hospital in Marjayoun, south Lebanon, Friday, October. 4, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Israel’s military struck outside the gates of a hospital in southern Lebanon without warning on Friday (October 4, 2024) killing seven paramedics and forcing the facility to close, the hospital director told The Associated Press a day after one of the most deadly attacks on health workers in the weeks since fighting escalated between Israel and Hezbollah.

The account of the Friday (October 4, 2024) airstrikes that flung hospital doors off their hinges and shattered glass was the latest to detail attacks that Lebanon’s health ministry says have killed dozens of health workers.

Attack on health facility in Lebanon

Marjayoun hospital director Mounes Kalakesh said that even before Friday’s attack, ambulance crews in the area were so reluctant to operate that the facility had not received anyone wounded for days.

“We have not been able to work. There was fear and panic among the staff,” he said.

Mr. Kalakesh said the government hospital didn’t receive any warning from Israeli forces before the attack, even though nearby villages have received such warnings to evacuate.

Israel has not commented specifically on the incident. Friday’s attack came hours before Israel’s Arabic-language military spokesman accused the Hezbollah militant group, based in southern Lebanon, of using ambulances to transport weapons and fighters, and warned medical teams to stay clear of the group. The spokesman provided no evidence.

It is a charge that Lebanese officials and hospital directors, including Mr. Kalakesh, deny. Lebanon’s health minister has accused Israel of committing “a war crime” by targeting medical teams and paramedics.

The health ministry on Thursday (October 3, 2024) said 40 paramedics, firefighters and health care workers had been killed in Israeli attacks over three days, making it even more challenging to care for people wounded in the intense fighting.

The ministry has said more than 100 health workers have been killed in the year since the war in Gaza began and since Israel and Hezbollah stepped up exchanges of fire along the border.

The paramedics with the Islamic Health Committee are part of the coordinated health ministry response to crises in Lebanon. Other civil defense teams have expressed concern for their safety, with some saying they came under attack while clearly identified and operating in areas where they were transporting the wounded or putting out fires.

Israeli strikes have landed near the Marjayoun hospital before but never had come so close, Mr. Kalakesh said. He described the paramedics dying in their burning vehicles.

45-bed hospital shut down

“I am responsible for this staff. I must protect them,” Mr. Kalakesh said, explaining the decision to evacuate. At the time of the Friday attack, there were 30 staff in the hospital. His team was already exhausted after a year of working close to the front line.

Other groups have expressed concern.

A Lebanese Red Cross convoy, escorted by Lebanese troops and coordinated with the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon, came under fire on Thursday (October 3, 2024). A Lebanese soldier was killed and four Red Cross volunteers were wounded.

Separately on Thursday (October 3, 2024), Israeli forces struck rescue teams with the Islamic Health Committee in Beirut’s southern suburbs and the southern village of Odeissah, killing at least four.

In Odeissah, responding ambulances were hit by Israeli fire and three medics who were wounded in the initial attack were killed as rescuers tried to reach them, the health ministry said. In the Beirut suburbs, the team working to remove rubble from the initial airstrike was hit in a drone attack that killed a driver and wounded seven, said Islamic Health Committee spokesman Mahmoud Karaki.

Targeting the health sector undermines the safety net for the public, Mr. Karaki said, He said 145 of his team members have been wounded over the past year.

Lebanon’s health ministry has said nine hospitals and 45 health care centers have been damaged during that time.

Hours after the Friday (October 4, 2024) attack outside Marjayoun hospital, another hospital in the southern town of Bint Jbeil was shelled by Israeli forces after receiving a warning to evacuate. Nine members of the medical and nursing staff at Salah Ghandour Hospital were wounded, most of them seriously.

The hospital later shut down because of the damage.

Women mourn over the coffin of killed Lebanese Hezbollah member Hussein Amhaz during his funeral in Baalbek, in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley, on September 19, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Israeli military said on Thursday (September 19, 2024) it struck six Hezbollah “terrorist infrastructure sites” and a weapons storage facility in southern Lebanon overnight, as fears grew of a full-blown war.

The air force “struck Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure sites in the areas of Chihine, Tayibe, Blida, Meiss El Jabal, Aitaroun and Kfarkela in southern Lebanon, as well as a Hezbollah weapons storage facility in the area of Khiam in southern Lebanon,” a military statement said.

Turkey on Thursday (September 19, 2024) accused Israel of seeking to expand the war in Gaza to Lebanon with the “alarming” wave of deadly explosions that swept though Hezbollah strongholds. 

“The escalation in the region is alarming,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on state-run media. “We see Israel mounting its attacks towards Lebanon step by step.”

Meanwhile, Lebanon‘s Hezbollah group said 20 of its members were killed, with a source close to the group telling AFP on Thursday (September 19, 2024) that they had died in walkie-talkie blasts blamed on Israel the day before.

The group sent separate death notices for each member from Wednesday evening to Thursday morning, saying they had been killed “on the road to Jerusalem” — the phrase used by Hezbollah to refer to fighters killed by Israel.

Lebanese soldiers gather outside a damaged mobile shop after what is believed to be the result of a walkie-talkie exploding inside it, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Wednesday, September 18, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Hezbollah was in disarray on Thursday (September 19, 2024) after a second wave of deadly explosions swept through its strongholds across Lebanon, putting pressure on its leader to exact revenge for the operation it blames on Israel.

The attack killed 32 people in two days, including two children, and wounded more than 3,000 others, according to Lebanese health ministry figures.

Attack on Hezbollah

Israel has not commented on the unprecedented operation that saw Hezbollah operatives’ walkie-talkies and pagers exploding in supermarkets, at funerals and on streets.

But its defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said on Wednesday (September 18, 2024) in reference to Israel’s border with Lebanon: “The centre of gravity is moving northward.”

“We are at the start of a new phase in the war”, he said.

Hezbollah is an ally of Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has been fighting a war in Gaza since its October 7 attack on Israel.

For nearly a year, the focus of Israel’s firepower has been on Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas.

But its troops have also been engaged in near-daily clashes with Hezbollah militants along its northern border, killing hundreds in Lebanon, most of them fighters, and dozens more in Israel.

The exchanges of fire have also forced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border to flee their homes.

Reeling from the operation that targeted its communication system, Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah said Israel was “fully responsible for this criminal aggression” and vowed revenge.

Hezbollah on Thursday (September 19, 2024) said 20 of its members had been killed, with a source close to the group saying they had died when their walkie-talkies had exploded a day earlier.

At 5:00 pm (1400 GMT) on Thursday (September 19, 2024), Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah will give a previously unscheduled televised speech that will be watched closely by both his supporters and his enemies for any signals of what shape a response might take.

‘Wider war’

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said the “blatant assault on Lebanon’s sovereignty and security” was a dangerous development that could “signal a wider war”.

Iran’s envoy to the UN said the country “reserves the right to take retaliatory measures” after its ambassador in Beirut was wounded in the blasts.

The White House, which is pressing to salvage efforts for an elusive ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza, warned all sides against “an escalation of any kind”.

“We don’t believe that the way to solve where we’re at in this crisis is by additional military operations at all,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

The October 7 attacks that sparked the war in Gaza resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Out of 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,272 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to data provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has acknowledged these figures as reliable.

In Gaza on Wednesday (September 18, 2024), the civil defence agency said an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter killed five people, while the Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants.

In Lebanon, the influx of so many casualties following the blasts overwhelmed medics.

At a Beirut hospital, doctor Joelle Khadra said “the injuries were mainly to the eyes and hands, with finger amputations, shrapnel in the eyes — some people lost their sight”.