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Lebanese healthcare workers fearful as growing numbers killed in strikes | Lebanon | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/03/lebanese-healthcare-workers-fearful-as-growing-numbers-killed-in-strike

One after another, Israeli airstrikes last week began to hit near hospitals in Lebanon’s south. On Tuesday one airstrike landed next to Bint Jbeil hospital and another hit the outskirts of Tibnine public hospital as ambulances were approaching it. An empty building next to Ragheb Harb University hospital near Nabatieh was hit on Wednesday and then again on Thursday.

Paramedics say they began to notice a pattern with the strikes: whenever they arrived at a location to start rescue operations, they said Israeli airstrikes would follow. In one case, in the town of Suhmoor in the western Bekaa valley on Monday last week, an ambulance was struck directly after the team left the car. Pictures of the vehicle engulfed in flames circulated in Lebanese media.

Meanwhile, paramedics have begun receiving strange calls with a voice speaking Arabic on the other end, warning them to evacuate their medical centres, said Rabih Issah, a local commissioner of Islamic Kashafat al-Risala medical organisation that serves much of south Lebanon.

Last Wednesday, paramedics in two different villages received calls, forcing the workers to stop their work and evacuate, though the buildings were not bombed. Unlike the wave of Israeli calls that warned 80,000 Lebanese to distance themselves from buildings it alleged contained Hezbollah weapons ahead of Israel’s aerial campaign in south Lebanon the week before, these warnings were directed only at the medical workers.

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