Beirut, Lebanon–Three paramedics affiliated with Hizbollah were killed in an Israeli strike on south Lebanon Monday, the group said, later announcing retaliatory fire, amid escalating cross-border hostilities during the Israel-Hamas war.
Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hizbollah movement have been exchanging near-daily fire since the day after the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October, raising fears all-out conflict could spread across the region.
The Hizbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee said three volunteer paramedics died “due to a direct Zionist attack on an emergency centre” in south Lebanon’s Adaysseh.
Hizbollah later said its fighters targeted Gesher Haziv near northern Israel’s coastal city of Nahariya “with batches of Katyusha rockets” in retaliation, while the Israeli military said a number of launches were intercepted, reporting no wounded.
The deaths came hours after Israeli medics said a missile strike on northern Israel killed a foreign worker and wounded seven others, from India.
Hizbollah on Monday claimed several attacks on Israeli military positions, while the Israeli military said it struck Hizbollah targets including “military compounds” and a “command and control centre” in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s health ministry condemned the deadly Israeli raid in Adaysseh “in the strongest terms” and called attacks on medical personnel “unacceptable”, in a statement carried by the state-run National News Agency.
Last month, two Islamic Health Committee paramedics and a Hizbollah fighter were killed in an Israeli strike on one of the organisation’s centres in south Lebanon’s Blida, the group and a security source said at the time.
The Israeli army said it had struck a Hizbollah “military compound” in the village.
And in January, Hizbollah said an Israeli strike killed two Islamic Health Committee medics in the town of Hanin. The Israeli army said it had struck Hizbollah targets, as well as “a number of areas in Lebanese territory”.
The fighting has killed at least 299 people in Lebanon, most of them Hizbollah fighters but also including 49 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
In Israel, at least 10 soldiers and seven civilians have been killed.