Lebanon mourns medics killed in Israeli attack
More on the Israeli attack on Lebanese rescue workers:
Lebanon’s General Directorate of Civil Defence said the five rescue workers were killed in an Israeli raid that “targeted the Civil Defence Centre on the town of Derdghaiya, as they were inside on the alert to receive emergency calls”.
The town is located in south Lebanon, to the east of the city of Tyre.
The Lebanese Health Ministry also slammed the attack, accusing the Israeli military of renewing the targeting of rescue and ambulance crews in violation of international laws. It said the toll in Derdghaiya was still provisional as operations to remove the rubble at the site were still ongoing.
The ministry said it reiterates its call for the “international community to take a firm stance to prevent [Israel] from continuing with these attacks that double the horrors of war”.
Lebanon cannot turn into ‘another Gaza’, White House official says
Responding to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s threat that Lebanese people will see “destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza” if they do not oust Hezbollah, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, “That is not what we want to see”.
“We cannot and will not see Lebanon turned into another Gaza,” she said. “The suffering in both Gaza and Lebanon adds even greater urgency, as you’ve heard from us, to our efforts, certainly to end the conflicts and lay a foundation for lasting peace and security in the region.”
Earlier, we reported similar comments made by State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, who told journalists there “should be no kind of military action in Lebanon that looks anything like Gaza and leaves a result anything like Gaza”.
Israeli forces kill four in Lebanon’s Baalbek
Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) is reporting that Israeli fighter jets bombed a building in the eastern Baalbek region, killing at least four people. Another wounded person was transferred to a hospital in critical condition, it said.
The latest casualties came as Israeli bombardment killed five people in the southern town of Wardaniyeh and another five paramedics in the Tyre district
Israeli attacks cause ‘material damage’ in Syria’s Homs and Hama
Syria’s state news agency is reporting that Israeli forces carried out air attacks on a car assembly plant in the town of Hassia in the Homs province as well as a military site in the countryside near the city of Hama.
The attacks occurred at 1am local time and caused “material damage”, the agency said, citing a military source.
Israel has ramped up bombings in Syria since it expanded its offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon two weeks ago. Earlier on Wednesday, a member of Syria’s internal security forces was killed and another wounded in an Israeli strike in Quneitra, while on Tuesday, at least seven civilians, including women and children, were killed in an Israeli air strike on the capital, Damascus.
