In Lebanon, health workers and medical facilities have continued to be hit and killed by ongoing Israeli bombardment, a week since Israel sent troops and armoured vehicles into the south of the country and issued evacuation orders, UN humanitarians said on Thursday.
The UN aid coordination office, OCHA, reported that ambulances and relief centres had been “targeted or hit in Lebanon, causing further casualties”, adding that the UN health agency WHO and health partners have continued to deliver life-saving surgical supplies to frontline health workers.
International humanitarian law provides special protection for ambulances, healthcare workers and their patients and must not be a target, OCHA insisted in an online update, as Lebanese officials said an Israeli airstrike killed five healthworkers in the south of the country.
According to the UN World Health Organization (WHO), 92 people in Lebanon have been killed and 92 injured in 38 attacks on healthcare in the last year, since Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel intensified with the outbreak of war in Gaza.
