Three consecutive Israeli drone strikes on ambulances in southern Lebanon killed four paramedics and wounded six others on Wednesday, April 16, according to eyewitness accounts and video evidence obtained by the Associated Press. The strikes occurred sequentially as rescue teams attempted to reach injured colleagues, with the final attack hitting the third team dispatched to assist the wounded. A 10-day truce in the Israel-Hezbollah war was providing the exhausted paramedics a rare respite from the conflict when journalists interviewed them about the attacks.
The strikes represent the latest documented case of Israeli military operations targeting Lebanese health workers. The Lebanese Health Ministry has recorded at least 100 medical workers killed since Israel began bombing operations and ground invasion in Lebanon on March 2, with humanitarian agencies reporting an average of two health workers killed every day in the conflict.
The attack
It was late morning in the village of Mayfadoun in southern Lebanon when two ambulances slowed to a stop on Wednesday, April 16.
The paramedics inside knew the danger. Minutes earlier, Israel had attacked two other ambulances — hitting one, then the other after it arrived to help. Nonetheless, they rushed to the scene.
The first two ambulances were destroyed, their tires blown and windows shattered. Six of their eight crew members were covered in blood, lying in the road or in the back of one vehicle. A paramedic in one driver’s seat, blood pulsing from his abdomen, was cradling a colleague in his lap, pleading with him to stay conscious.
As team leader Mahdi Abu Zaid ran to close the doors of a third rescue ambulance after loading the most critically injured, an Israeli drone struck.
“I felt sick. I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Mohammed Jaber, 43, told The Associated Press on Friday from his emergency team’s headquarters in Nabatiyeh. The paramedics had just begun a 10-day truce in the Israel-Hezbollah war, delivering rare respite from explosions.
The three strikes, occurring in rapid succession, killed Abu Zaid and three other paramedics. Six others were wounded.
Abu Zaid, 30, had a 4-year-old son and sold spices and nuts when he wasn’t volunteering as a paramedic. According to his colleagues, an Israeli drone smashed through the ambulance windows and struck him, throwing him to the ground. He was later pronounced dead on arrival at al-Najda Hospital.
The account matches video footage captured by a GoPro camera strapped to one of the paramedics. The video shows a barrage of fire hitting the ambulance as medical workers administered first aid to colleagues in blood-soaked clothes, one taking shallow breaths through an oxygen mask.
A fourth team of rescuers finally reached the stranded medics and evacuated the wounded without being targeted.
A deepening pattern
The strikes represent the latest documented case of Israeli military operations targeting Lebanese health workers during the Israel-Hezbollah war.
The Lebanese Health Ministry recorded at least 100 medical workers killed since Israel launched bombing operations and ground invasion in Lebanon on March 2. Humanitarian agencies reported that an average of two health workers were killed every day in the conflict before the truce took hold Friday.
The first two paramedic teams struck on April 16 were dispatched by the Islamic Health Committee, a major health care provider affiliated with Hezbollah, and the Risala Scout Association, affiliated with the Amal movement, a Hezbollah ally. Dozens of paramedics from both groups have been killed in six weeks of conflict.
The World Health Organization reported that 59 primary health care centers have been shut down due to Israeli attacks. The main Islamic Health Committee clinic in the village of Jibsheet, near Nabatiyeh, was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike last month.
The UN health agency also condemned Israeli strikes that hit Lebanon’s Tebnine Government Hospital twice within three days in mid-April, wounding 11 medical workers and damaging the emergency department, pharmacy, and critical equipment including ventilators and monitors.
The human toll
For paramedics in Lebanon, the targeting of ambulances represents a deepening toll. Mohammed Suleiman, chief paramedic for Nabatiyeh Emergency Services, lost his own son in the conflict.
Joud, 16, had been accompanying rescue missions since he was a young child. He was killed with a fellow paramedic in an Israeli strike on a motorcycle on March 24 — the unit’s first casualty since its founding in 2002.
“I always had my fears, but I believed that as a neutral organization with no connection to politics, we would be safe, off-limits,” Suleiman said.
Jaber questioned the targeting strategy. “They should be targeting fighters, where the fighting is happening, at the border,” he said. “Why target medics and civilians? So that life becomes unbearable and people tell Hezbollah to give up?”
The United Nations’ human rights office said it was “shocked” by the ambulance attacks and warned that intentionally targeting medics constituted a war crime.
In response to questions about the strikes, the Israeli military said it was aware of reports about the ambulance attacks and “the incident is under review.” The military did not repeat previous accusations that Hezbollah uses health facilities for military cover.
Bearing witness
With the ceasefire in effect Friday, the Nabatiyeh paramedics returned to Mayfadoun, where the three destroyed ambulances remained peppered with shrapnel, the asphalt stained with blood. They rented a tow truck and hauled Abu Zaid’s mangled ambulance to a public square in Nabatiyeh.
“We want this vehicle to bear witness,” said Mahdi Sadeq, a coordinator for the service. “To bear witness to what happened, to what this war has done to our profession.”