Rescue teams searched through the rubble early on Thursday after an overnight Israeli strike in southern Lebanon killed at least five members of the country’s civil defense agency, according to Lebanon’s health ministry and state news media.
The strike hit a civil defense base of operations where the emergency workers were waiting to respond to relief calls, said Elie Khairallah, a spokesman for the agency. The agency’s regional chief was among those killed, he said, adding that the building, situated near a church in the southern Lebanese town of Derdghaiya, was leveled in the attack.
Lebanon’s health ministry condemned the killings, accusing the Israeli military of targeting ambulance crews and rescue teams. There was no immediate comment from Israel’s military.
At least 65 health workers have been killed in Lebanon since Israel intensified its offensive there against the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah three weeks ago, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday. It added that the agency had recorded 16 “attacks on health care” across the country in the same period of time.
As the Israeli military continued to pound Hezbollah targets across Lebanon on Thursday, the country’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, suggested that diplomatic efforts with the United States and France to secure a pause in the fighting had “intensified.”
Mr. Mikati’s comments, in a statement from his office, could not be independently verified. There was no immediate comment from the United States or France, which last month had put forward a proposal for a 21-day pause in the fighting.
Hezbollah also kept up its rocket attacks into Israel on Thursday, with the Israeli military saying that 40 projectiles had been launched from Lebanon in the morning, setting off sirens in parts of the country’s north. Some were intercepted but several struck the area, according to the military. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
Hezbollah said it had been targeting Israeli troops stationed along the border with Lebanon, and in the city of Kiryat Shmona. On Wednesday, a rocket attack in Kiryat Shmona killed two civilians.
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