Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said this Friday, October 25, that 163 first responders and caregivers had been killed in Israeli attacks across the country, just over a year after the start of cross-border shootings between Hezbollah and Israel.
The total number of caregivers and rescuers killed “so far amounts to 163”, to which must be added “272 injured”, declared Firass Abiad during a press conference dedicated to “the damage caused by the Israeli attacks against the health sector in Lebanon”.
He considered these attacks to be “direct and intentional” and called them “war crimes.” It also reported “Israeli attacks” against 55 hospitals, 36 of which were “direct targets,” resulting in “the forced closure of eight hospitals.”
158 ambulances and 57 fire trucks attacked
And according to him, the bodies of eight rescue workers killed in Israeli attacks on their three ambulances could not be recovered, near border towns where fighting is taking place between Hezbollah supported by Iran and the Israeli army leading the ground incursions.
“The Israeli enemy has refused to even allow us to recover the bodies for two weeks,” Firass Abiad said.
And six firefighters remain buried under rubble in another town in southern Lebanon, he added.
Israel also attacked 158 ambulances, 57 fire trucks and 15 rescue vehicles, according to the minister. The Israeli military accuses first responders from the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee of transporting fighters and weapons in their ambulance, which the group denies.
The rescuers, active mainly in the south, east of Lebanon and in the southern suburbs of Beirut, violently bombed Hezbollah strongholds and were the target of Israeli attacks on several occasions, which left dozens of their paramedics dead and wounded.
After nearly a year of cross-border shootings, Israel launched a massive bombing campaign across Lebanon on September 23, entering into open war with Hezbollah, which it says it wants to neutralize.
Since September 23, Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed at least 1,580 people, according to an AFP tally based on data from the Lebanese Health Ministry, and displaced more than a million people across the country.
Source: BFM TV
