BEIRUT: Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Friday, killed at least five medics, the Lebanese Health Ministry claimed.
The ministry said three medics were killed and three others injured when they were targeted in an Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese town of Qotrani.
An earlier Israeli strike on a vehicle had killed two medics in the southern town of Deir Qanoun Ras Al-Ain, the ministry had said.
Israel has intensified its intense military campaign against Hezbollah groups, diminishing for an imminent ceasefire.
US Special Envoy Amos Hochstein earlier this week said that a truce was “within our grasp.” Hochstein made the remarks in Beirut on Tuesday after meeting with Nabih Berri, the speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, who has been endorsed by Hezbollah to negotiate a deal, according to Al Jazeera.
His trip was aimed at ending more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah along Lebanon’s southern border, which intensified when Israel increased its strikes in late September and sent ground troops into Lebanon on October. 1.
Israeli strikes on two other villages in southern Lebanon killed a total of five medics from a rescue force affiliated with Hezbollah, the Lebanese health ministry said. It said that more than 3,500 people were killed by Israeli strikes over the last year including more than 200 medics.
However, Israel says its objective is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from Israel’s north because of rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which started across the border in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Israel also increased strikes on Beirut’s southern parts, a stronghold of Hezbollah.
Earlier today, the WHO in a statement said that 226 health workers have been killed in Lebanon since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza, following the October 7 attacks last year.
