Hospital bombed as Israeli air strike cuts off highway linking Lebanon and Syria
5 October 2024, 07:34
The hospital attack comes after an Israeli airstrike cut off a main highway.
A hospital in southern Lebanon said it had been shelled by Israeli forces on Friday after being warned to evacuate.
The statement from Salah Ghandour Hospital in the town of Bint Jbeil said the shelling “resulted in nine members of the medical and nursing staff being injured, most of them seriously,” while most of the medical staff were evacuated.
A day earlier, the World Health Organization said 28 health workers in Lebanon had been killed in the past 24 hours.
Earlier on Friday, the Israel military in a statement alleged that rescue vehicles were being used by Hezbollah to transport militants and weapons.
The hospital attack comes after an Israeli airstrike cut off a main highway linking Lebanon with Syria on Friday, leaving two huge craters on either side of the road.
The airstrike rendered the road unusable for cars, leaving people to go on foot to the Masnaa Border Crossing where tens of thousands of people fleeing war in Lebanon have crossed into Syria in the past two weeks.
Israel began a ground incursion into Lebanon on Tuesday against the Hezbollah militant group, while continuing strikes in Gaza.
The Israeli military said nine soldiers have died in the conflict in southern Lebanon.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage.
Israel declared war on the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.
Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, most of them since September 23, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
