AT least six health workers have been killed in Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon as Israel has bombarded areas around the ancient eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek for a second day after issuing forced evacuation orders.
“Enemy aircraft launched four strikes on the village of Douris and the surroundings of the city of Baalbek,” Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported on Thursday.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said the six medics were killed and four others were wounded in multiple Israeli attacks. It said Israeli forces hit a gathering point for civil defence workers, killing four medics. Two other medics were killed in two more separate incidents.
There was another attack in the town of Salaa, which destroyed an ambulance, but the paramedic operating it “miraculously survived”, it said.
“The international community’s silence regarding this brutality is unjustified at a time when voices must be raised to restore humanitarian laws and put an end to the machine of brutality that continues to kill front-line personnel,” the ministry said in a statement carried by the NNA.
The number of paramedics killed since the beginning of Israel’s attacks on Lebanon has risen to 178, with 279 wounded, and 246 vehicles hit, it said.
Israel also carried out air strikes in the al-Housh area of Tyre, southern Lebanon, the NNA reported. Al Jazeera’s verification agency, Sanad, has confirmed footage posted online showing the moment of the bombing and dense smoke rising from multiple raids in the area.
The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah also fired rockets towards Israel on Thursday. An attack on northern Israel’s Metula killed five people including an Israeli farmer and four foreign workers, Israel’s Channel 12 said.
Israeli emergency services said a rocket launched from Lebanon towards Haifa killed two people in northern Israel.
Medics “treated and attempted resuscitation on a 30-year-old male and a 60-year-old female, who were then pronounced dead”, the Magen David Adom first responders said in a statement.
The Lebanese group also said it had launched several rocket and artillery attacks against Israeli forces near the southern town of Khiam. It marked the fourth straight day of fighting in and around the strategic hilltop town.
Israeli forces launched a ground invasion in southern Lebanon on October 1.
