BEIRUT — Three successive Israeli attacks killed at least three paramedics in southern Lebanon on Wednesday,a day after landmark talks with a Lebanese government envoy in Washington, Lebanese officials said.
The officials accused Israel of deliberately targeting health workers as it pressed the war against Hezbollah.
“The Israeli enemy targeted paramedic teams in the town of Mayfadoun, Nabatiyeh District, three consecutive times,” the Lebanese health ministry said. “This resulted in the martyrdom of three paramedics and the injury of six others, while one paramedic remains missing.”
A team from the Islamic Health Association was attacked as it tried to rescue people from the site of an Israeli attack in the town of Mayfadoun in the Nabatieh region, according to the ministry. One paramedic was killed and a second remains missing.
When a second team from the Islamic Health Association headed to the site, it too was attacked, and three paramedics were wounded, the ministry said.
Then, two ambulances of the Risala Scout Association and the Nabatieh Ambulance Service, which had been deployed to the site, were also attacked. Two paramedics were killed and three others wounded.
The victims included Fadel Serhan, a 43-year-old paramedic with the Risala Scout Association.
Serhan’s team was operating in a tent set up outside the city’s Nabih Berri Hospital after their own station in Mayfadoun was destroyed in an Israeli air strike in the first days of the war, killing one person.
More than 2,100 people have been killed and 7,000 others wounded since the start of the war in Lebanon on 2 March, according to the country’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. The number includes at least 260 women and 172 children.
The ministry says 91 health professionals have been killed and 208 other wounded in the war, with more than 120 Israeli attacks recorded on ambulances and medical facilities.
In a statement, the health ministry said Wednesday’s attacks were a “flagrant crime”. “Paramedics have become direct targets, pursued relentlessly in a blatant violation that confirms a total disregard for all norms and principles established by international humanitarian law,” it said. — Agencies
Source: Saudi Gazette