ISRAELI forces have launched a new wave of air attacks in Lebanon, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens of others, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry and state media.
Israeli air raids on the Al-Baqbouq area, north of the city of Tyre, killed at least five people and wounded two others on Saturday, reported Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA). Rescue teams recovered four bodies but one woman’s body remained trapped under the rubble, as ongoing Israeli strikes hampered the work of emergency crews.
At least nine people were killed and six others injured in a separate Israeli air strike targeting a residential building in the town of Seir al-Gharbiya, in the Nabatieh district. The death toll, which stood at five earlier, was expected to rise further as the search and rescue teams continued their work, removing rubble.
A dawn attack by Israeli warplanes on a house in the town of al-Rafid in the Rashaya al-Wadi district killed one person and wounded another, NNA said. Another air attack hit the town of al-Shahabiya killing and wounding several people.
An Israeli drone killed one person in the town of al-Housh in Tyre district, added NNA. And an overnight strike targeted the town of Deir Qanoun en-Nahr in Tyre district, completely destroying a house and killing four people.
Late on Saturday, the Israeli army targeted a Civil Defence team linked to the Islamic Health Authority in the town of Kfar, said NNA, adding that the team was carrying out a rescue operation to recover casualties from an earlier Israeli attack when it came under fire. The strike wounded members of the rescue crew.
The NNA also said an overnight strike in Tyre that targeted a site near Hiram Hospital caused “severe damage” to the facility in Aabbasiyyeh.
Around 40 patients were in the facility, including seven in intensive care, when a warning to evacuate the area was issued, Hiram Hospital chief executive Salman Aydibi told the AFP news agency.
“We took the patients to a safer location,” he said, adding that none were harmed.
Aydibi said an evaluation of the damage was ongoing and the hospital has remained operational, though the emergency department briefly closed. He said it was the third strike near the facility since the war began on March 2.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health later said that at least 25 medical, nursing and administrative staff at the hospital had been wounded. Aydibi said about 30 staff members had sustained minor injuries.
“This is the second time in less than two months that the hospital has been exposed to these dangers due to repeated Israeli targeting, which constitutes further evidence of the Israeli enemy’s violation of international humanitarian law”, the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry praised health workers “who are on the front lines, refusing to evacuate their posts in order to continue their humanitarian mission and provide ambulance, health and medical services to those who need them”.
The NNA reported large explosions on Saturday in the southern Lebanese towns of Yohmor al-Shaqif in Nabatieh and Taybeh in Marjayoun district.
On Thursday, an Israeli attack near the Tebnine Hospital in southern Lebanon damaged all three floors of the building, including the emergency room, intensive care unit, surgical ward and ambulances parked outside, according to the Ministry of Public Health.
Israel’s military issued three forced displacement warnings since Friday night, via its Arabic-language spokesman, for the southern Lebanese village of Burj Rahal and the areas of Tyre and Zqouq al-Mufdi.