Lebanon’s health minister said Thursday more than 40 rescuers and firefighters were killed by Israeli fire in three days, with 97 killed overall since Hezbollah and Israel began clashing last October.
Firass Abiad told reporters that in three days 40 people “among those working in ambulances and fire trucks” were killed.
He said 97 “paramedics and firefighters” had been killed and 188 wounded since fighting began.
The toll includes rescuers in organisations affiliated with Hezbollah or other Lebanese parties.
Since the clashes began, 1,974 people have been killed by Israeli fire, including 127 children, he said, adding that more than 9,350 have been wounded.
After nearly a year of low-intensity cross-border fighting, Israel has shifted the focus of its operation from Gaza to Lebanon, where heavy bombing has forced hundreds of thousands to flee.
This week, Israel announced that its troops had started ground raids into parts of southern Lebanon, a stronghold of Hezbollah.
Fatima’s Gate
Hezbollah said it fought off a bid by Israeli troops to advance at Fatima’s Gate on the border.
It also said it set off two explosive devices against advancing Israeli forces as it kept up its cross-border strikes, firing a barrage of rockets at the city of Tiberias in what it said was a response to the bombardment of Lebanese “towns, villages and civilians”.
It also said it fired a barrage of rockets at the Israeli city of Tiberias on Thursday.
The Iran-backed group “fired a salvo of rockets at the city of Tiberias,” it said, in response to the Israeli bombardment of Lebanese “towns, villages and civilians”.
New Beirut Strikes
Lebanon’s state-run media said three Israeli air strikes hit Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold on Thursday, the latest raids following a night of intense bombardment.
“Enemy aircraft launched three strikes on (Beirut’s) southern suburbs,” the official National News Agency (NNA) reported.
A source close to the group told AFP the strike “targeted a building housing Hezbollah’s media relations office,” which had already been “evacuated”.
Gunfire Exchanged
Lebanon’s army said it returned Israeli fire for the first time on Thursday in nearly a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah after a second soldier was killed by Israeli fire.
“A soldier was killed after the Israeli enemy targeted an army post in the Bint Jbeil area — in the south, and the personnel at the post responded to the sources of fire,” the army said in a statement. A military official told AFP this was the first response to Israeli fire since last October because the post had been “directly” hit, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
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