Hezbollah: Israel strike kills two affiliated medics in South Lebanon

Smoke billows over the south Lebanon village of Khiam after an Israeli bombardment  © Rabie DAHER / AFP

The Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah said an Israeli strike killed two affiliated medics in south Lebanon on Thursday in what it called a “blatant attack” on the first aid clinic where they worked.

“The Israeli enemy recently targeted a civil defence centre affiliated with the Islamic Health Committee in the town of Hanin, killing two martyrs,” the group said in a statement.

“What happened is a blatant attack on a centre serving Lebanese citizens, providing relief and treating those wounded and injured in the ongoing Israeli aggression.”

The Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee said two of its staff had been killed by Israeli fire.

Hezbollah said it had launched “dozens of rockets” on the Israeli border town of Kiryat Shmona “in response”.

Lebanon’s health ministry condemned the attack “in the strongest terms” saying that it “directly targeted the Islamic Health Committee centre” and also hit an ambulance.

The Israeli army said that it had struck Hezbollah targets, including “military sites, a military post and terrorist infrastructure,” as well “a number of areas in Lebanese territory”.

Later Thursday, a civil defence centre belonging to the Risala Scout association — a group affiliated with the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement — “was hit by a missile fired from an enemy warplane,” Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.

The missile did not explode and emergency teams based in the centre “survived” the strike in the southern village of Khiam, NNA said.

On November 5, four Risala Scouts first responders were wounded when an Israeli strike hit two ambulances in south Lebanon.

Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged near-daily cross-border fire since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7.

More than three months of violence have killed 190 people in Lebanon, more than 140 of them Hezbollah fighters but over 20 of them civilians, including three journalists, according to an AFP tally.

In northern Israel, nine soldiers and at least four civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.

AFP/FRANCE24