Second round of Israeli airstrikes kills nine – including paramedics
ISRAELI airstrikes killed nine people in southern Lebanon late on Wednesday, including paramedics who were preparing to respond to the first strike, the state-run National News Agency said.
That raises the number of people killed by Israeli strikes on Wednesday to 16, after an earlier attack hit a different paramedic centre linked to a Lebanese Sunni Muslim group, killing seven of the group’s members.
And earlier on Wednesday, the Shia militant group Hezbollah claimed responsibility for firing a barrage of rockets into the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona and a military base, which killed one person.
It said the rockets were in response to the deadly strike on the paramedics centre.
The Lebanese news agency said
Israel bombed the village of Teir Harfa after sunset, killing five, and a second strike killed four people as paramedics gathered near a cafe in the coastal town of Naqoura.
Hezbollah’s Islamic health society said two of its paramedics were killed in Teir Harfa while the Islamic Risala scout association, also a paramedic group, said one of its members was killed in the strike on Naqoura.
Hezbollah said two of its fighters were killed, without saying where.
The Amal movement, a Shia political and paramilitary organisation, said the strike on Naqoura killed one of its local commanders, identified as Ali Mahdi.
Israel’s military said it had struck a Hezbollah military compound in Teir Harfa and a “terrorist cell” in Naqoura.
Israel said the earlier strike in Hebbariye killed a member of the
Sunni al-jamaa al-islamiya, or the Islamic Group, and several other militants.
It said the man was involved in attacks against Israel.
Hezbollah has been firing rockets into northern Israel since the day after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7.
The near-daily violence has mostly been confined to the area along the Lebanon-israel border.
Nearly 240 Hezbollah fighters and about 40 civilians have died in Lebanon.
The fighting has killed nine civilians and 11 soldiers in Israel.
Elsewhere, Israeli authorities said an attacker wounded three people after opening fire at several vehicles on a main route in the occupied West Bank yesterday.
The Israeli military said the attacker fled the scene following yesterday’s shooting and that forces were conducting searches.
Magen David Adom of the Israeli rescue service said the injuries were moderate or light and that a 13-year-old was among the wounded.
Two-thirds of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are not functioning after Al Amal hospital in the south of the territory ceased operations amid intense military activity, UN humanitarian officials said.
Israel will not surrender to Hamas’s delusional demands
According to the UN World Health Organisation, Gaza now has just 12 operating hospitals: two that are “minimally functional” and 10 that are partially functional, four in the north and six in the south.
It comes after Hamas earlier this week rejected the latest proposal put forward by international mediators for a ceasefire and hostage release and Israel has blasted a UN Security Council resolution that called for both without linking them.
As the war in Gaza grinds through a sixth month, each side has publicly insisted that its own idea of victory is within reach, and late on Monday they rejected the latest international efforts to stem the bloodshed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel can achieve its aims of dismantling Hamas and returning scores of hostages if it expands its ground offensive to the southern city of Rafah.
More than half of Gaza’s population has sought refuge in Rafah, many in crowded tent camps.
Hamas has said it will hold onto the hostages until Israel agrees to a more permanent ceasefire, withdraws its forces from Gaza and releases hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including top militants.
It said that it has rejected a recent proposal that fell short of those demands, which, if fulfilled, would allow it to claim an extremely costly victory.
Mr Netanyahu said in a statement that the announcement “proved clearly that Hamas is not interested in continuing negotiations toward a deal and served as unfortunate testimony to the damage of the Security Council decision”.
“Israel will not surrender to Hamas’s delusional demands and will continue to act to achieve all the goals of the war: releasing all the hostages, destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities and ensuring that Gaza will never again be a threat to Israel.”
There is no end in sight to the war, which has killed over 32,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The fighting has left much of the Gaza Strip in ruins, displaced most of its residents and driven a third of its population of 2.3 million to the brink of famine.