dpa
Beirut
A Lebanese soldier was killed in the southern town of Taybeh in an Israeli attack on Thursday, with another soldier killed shortly afterwards in an attack in Bint Jbeil, in the first army deaths since the start of the Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon.
The Taybeh attack took place while troops were carrying out an evacuation and rescue mission along with the Lebanese Red Cross, the army said. Initial reports said another soldier was injured.
The Red Cross said members of its ambulance and emergency team were also injured in the attack.
Local journalists reported that the Red Cross convoy was attacked despite an agreement with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) observer mission, which has been monitoring the border area between Israel and Lebanon for decades.
So far, more than 100 medical workers and firefighters have been killed and 220 injured in Israeli attacks in Lebanon, Health Minister Firass Abiad said.
The attacks hit nine hospitals, 45 other medical centres and almost 130 ambulances and firefighting vehicles, he said, without specifying a time frame for these figures.
In the past three days alone, however, more than 40 medical workers and firefighters were killed, he added.
“This is a violation of international laws and treaties, and it is a war crime, there is no doubt,” he told reporters.
The latest deaths come amid growing fears the Middle East could slip into all-out war after the Iranian missile barrage on Israel earlier this week and with fronts already open in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip as the Jewish state battles Islamist groups Hezbollah and Hamas, both allied with Tehran.
Israeli Beirut strike toll reaches nine The death toll in Beirut rose to nine and 14 others were injured in an Israeli attack on the Lebanese capital’s central Bashoura area, the Health Ministry said on Thursday.
The authorities are carrying out DNA tests to identify the remains removed from the site in order to be able to give a final toll, the ministry said.
It is the second time this week that Israel has hit central Beirut.
Civil defence teams have extinguished the fire that erupted following the Bashoura strike, the official NNA news agency reported.
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes continued on southern Lebanon, hitting Aitaroun, Bint Jbeil and Tyre, among other towns, NNA said.
In the past 24 hours, civil defence forces have carried out 193 operations, including recovering bodies, extinguishing fires, carrying out several search and rescue operations, reopening roads and transporting water to displacement shelters, NNA added.
Earlier, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) referred to a precise strike in Beirut and also called on residents of some areas in Beirut’s southern suburbs to evacuate the area.
Eyewitnesses in Beirut reported at least two attacks on a southern suburb of the capital in the early hours of the day.
IDF hits 200 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon The Israeli Air Force struck around 200 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, including weapons stocks and observation posts, the IDF said.
“As part of the strike, approximately 15 Hezbollah terrorists were eliminated,” the IDF said, detailing a strike on a municipality building in Bint Jbeil near the border with Israel.
“The Hezbollah organization systematically violates international law, while brutally exploiting government and civilian buildings as well as the population as human shields for terrorist activity,”
the IDF said.
