War crimes: Rescuers and army targeted again by Israel in South Lebanon

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In South Lebanon, a new sequence of Israeli strikes targets those who intervene after the bombings: rescuers, ambulance workers, civil defense and the Lebanese army. In Maaroub, an ambulance from the Islamic Risala Scouts Civil Defense was hit by a drone, killing three people. In Shhour, two rescue workers were killed and a third seriously injured in a direct attack on an ambulance. The Lebanese army also announced that one of its vehicles was targeted on the Deir al-Zahrani-Nabatieh road, injuring an officer and a soldier. Another soldier fell in Nabatieh al-Fawqa, targeted while riding a motorcycle.

Rescuers targeted: a red line crossed

Lebanon has recorded a new sequence of attacks directly targeting those who intervene after the strikes: rescuers, paramedics, civil defense and the Lebanese army. During the night and during the day, several incidents were reported in the South, between Maaroub, Shhour, Deir al-Zahrani, Nabatieh and Nabatieh al-Fawqa. They depict the same reality: the teams responsible for saving, evacuating or securing the roads find themselves in the line of fire.

According to available information, a drone strike targeted the Maaroub road at 1:22 a.m. The attack hit a Civil Defense ambulance belonging to the Islamic Risala Scouts. Three rescue workers were killed. The Lebanese Ministry of Health also announced two rescuers killed and a third seriously injured during a direct strike against an ambulance in Shhour. These attacks come on top of a series of recent incidents against healthcare and rescue teams in southern Lebanon.

The Lebanese army, for its part, announced that one of its vehicles had been targeted by an Israeli drone on the Deir al-Zahrani-Nabatieh road. An officer and a soldier were injured. In another incident, a Lebanese soldier was killed in Nabatieh al-Fawqa after being targeted while riding a motorcycle. The military institution presents these facts as part of repeated targeting of its elements, its vehicles and its positions, against a backdrop of a continuous Israeli offensive in the South.

The day is therefore not limited to a review of isolated strikes. It poses a central question for Lebanon: what remains of the protection of emergency services when ambulances, intervention centers, military motorcycles and army vehicles become targets? The question goes beyond military matters. It affects the continuity of the state, the capacity to evacuate the wounded, access to hospitals, and the survival of the inhabitants still present in the exposed villages.

Maaroub: three dead in an ambulance

Maaroub’s strike comes in a locality in the Caza of Tyre, in an area already subject to raids, overflights and successive alerts. The time, 1:22 a.m., gives an idea of ​​the vulnerability of the rescue teams. At night, paramedics move with less visibility, on roads that are sometimes cut off, in areas where drones remain audible but difficult to locate. When an ambulance is hit, it’s not just a vehicle that disappears. It is a capacity for immediate intervention which is withdrawn from an entire area.

The Islamic Risala Scouts occupy an important place in the relief system in South Lebanon. Their teams intervene in villages, evacuate the wounded, recover bodies, transport patients to hospitals and often work in direct contact with bombed areas. Their political or community affiliation, often highlighted in public debate, takes nothing away from the medical or relief nature of a mission when it is conducted as such. This is the principle that humanitarian organizations regularly recall.

Maaroub’s case also crystallizes a recurring fear among rescuers: that of the second strike. In several recent episodes in Lebanon, emergency teams were hit while heading to a bombed site or evacuating victims. This logic paralyzes operations. Ambulances sometimes have to wait before moving. The teams look at the sky before taking out the stretchers. The injured stay longer on site, which reduces their chances of survival.

Shhour: an ambulance directly affected

In Shhour, the direct strike against an ambulance reinforces this feeling of a systematic threat. The Ministry of Health reported two rescuers killed and a third seriously injured. Here again, the central element is not only the number of victims. It is due to the nature of the announced target: an emergency vehicle. An ambulance crew does not intervene like a combat unit. He transports, stabilizes, evacuates, sometimes under fire, often without knowing if the road will remain open.

The loss of two rescuers in Shhour also deprives neighboring villages of valuable operational experience. In drone warfare, every minute counts. The rescuers know the secondary roads, the routes that are still passable, the isolated families, the houses inhabited despite evacuation orders and the hospitals capable of receiving the injured. Their disappearance is not only measured in lives lost. It is also measured in weakened collective capacity.

Attacks on relief supplies have an immediate effect on civilians. When a resident hears a knock, they no longer know if the ambulance will come. When a family decides to leave a village, they no longer know if the road to the hospital or to a reception center will remain passable. When a seriously injured person must be transferred, the ambulance driver must decide between the medical emergency and the risk of a hit on the route. This uncertainty transforms each medical trip into a survival decision.

South Lebanon is already experiencing an advanced hospital crisis. Establishments suffered material damage. Health workers were injured. The hospitals that are still open are operating with reduced teams, generators in demand, stocks under pressure and an irregular flow of injured people. In this context, the destruction or immobilization of an ambulance has a chain effect. It slows down evacuations, overloads other teams and forces families to use private cars, sometimes without medical equipment or qualified support.

Lebanese army targeted

The Lebanese army finds itself in a different, but equally sensitive, position. It is not a civilian medical service. It embodies the State, sovereignty and the maintenance of a minimum of order in the affected areas. Its deployment in the South serves to supervise roads, support certain evacuations, maintain links with local authorities and document violations. When a military vehicle is hit on the Deir al-Zahrani-Nabatieh road, the attack targets an institution already placed under constraint.

According to the army, the drone injured an officer and a soldier. The military press release places this incident in a series of targeting against its elements, its vehicles and its positions. The wording is serious. It does not describe a traffic accident. She accuses Israel of repeatedly targeting the Lebanese military institution. This accusation has a strong political significance, because the army is supposed to be the central interlocutor of any stabilization, withdrawal or redeployment mechanism in the South.

The death of a soldier in Nabatieh al-Fawqa adds another dimension. According to the information provided, he was targeted while he was riding a motorcycle. Location is important. Nabatieh al-Fawqa is located in an area that has become more exposed as Israeli operations have moved closer to Nabatieh and the Beaufort Heights. The strike against a soldier on an individual trip shows that the risk does not only concern posts, roadblocks or visible convoys. It also affects the ordinary movements of soldiers.

These attacks against the army weaken the only national actor likely to be deployed in a consolidated ceasefire scenario. International discussions, particularly those carried out under American sponsorship, regularly discuss the role of the Lebanese army in controlling border areas, securing roads and supporting an Israeli withdrawal. However, each strike against its vehicles or soldiers reduces its margin of action and complicates its image among residents.

The Lebanese army does not have the same means as the Israeli army. It does not control airspace. It does not have comparable anti-drone defense. It operates in an area where drones, planes and artillery fire often set the pace. Its patrols are therefore exposed without being able to respond to the level of the threat. This asymmetry reinforces the political character of each attack. She recalls that Lebanese sovereignty remains limited by Israeli air domination.

A travel strategy denounced by Beirut

In its press release, the army also links these attacks to destruction and forced displacement. She says the escalation aims to push people out of their villages and communities. This reading is consistent with that of many local authorities in the South, who see evacuation orders, the destruction of houses, strikes on the roads and pressure on emergency services as a strategy intended to make certain areas uninhabitable. Israel, for its part, claims to be taking action against Hezbollah and its military infrastructure.

The debate on intention should not obscure the effects. The villages are emptying. The remaining residents live in fear of the next alert. Rescuers intervene with increasing risks. The roads between Tyre, Nabatieh, Deir al-Zahrani, Maaroub, Shhour and neighboring localities are becoming lines of tension. Families travel by calculating the flight times, the areas hit the day before and the places where an ambulance can still pass.

The protection of relief is not a secondary issue in the law of war. Medical personnel, ambulances and care units benefit from special protection when they are assigned exclusively to medical missions. This protection is not absolute in the event of abusive military use, but it can only be lifted under strict conditions, after warning when circumstances permit. In practice, each attack against an ambulance therefore requires precise, verifiable explanations compatible with international humanitarian law.

Civil Defense also benefits from a special status when it acts to protect civilians, put out fires, evacuate the injured or rescue buried people. In a country like Lebanon, where several relief networks coexist with different affiliations, the distinction between institutional membership and operational mission becomes essential. An organization can be close to a political movement, but a rescuer in intervention remains protected if he carries out a relief mission and does not participate in hostilities.

The precedent of attacks against caregivers

The repetition of attacks is all the more worrying since international medical organizations have already denounced a pattern of attacks on health teams in Lebanon. Doctors Without Borders condemned in May the death of rescuers killed while trying to help a wounded man in Nabatieh. The World Health Organization and several UN agencies have also warned of the damage suffered by healthcare infrastructure and health personnel since the intensification of the war.

The risk is now that of normalization. By dint of daily reports, the deaths of first aiders can become one line among others in the press releases. It is precisely this shift that the Lebanese health authorities are seeking to prevent. They insist on the direct nature of the strikes against ambulances and on the need to document each incident. The victims’ families often wait for names, bodies, certificates and official recognition that is not limited to the word martyr.

The rescuers killed in Maaroub and Shhour join a long list of responders who died on duty. Their names have not all been made public in the material available at the time of writing. It would therefore be unwise to publish any without official confirmation. But the absence of names should not make their deaths anonymous. They were part of teams that get up at night, get into an ambulance and enter an area that others are trying to escape. Their function is sufficient to understand the nature of the risk assumed.

Washington, ceasefire and reality on the ground

This sequence comes as Lebanon tries to assert its diplomatic case. Washington’s discussions, initiated to preserve or strengthen an already largely weakened ceasefire, are based on several conditions: cessation of strikes, Israeli withdrawal, increased role of the Lebanese army and verification mechanisms. But attacks on the army and relief workers undermine each of these conditions. They weaken the actors who should precisely be carrying out stabilization.

The paradox is striking. On paper, any de-escalation mechanism requires safe roads, protected ambulances, an army capable of patrolling and accessible hospitals. On the ground, these same elements are affected or threatened. It then becomes difficult to convince the inhabitants that a truce really exists. A truce is not only measured by the silence of arms between combatants. It is also measured by the possibility for an ambulance to drive without being hit.

The Lebanese government is faced with an urgent matter. It must consolidate evidence, transmit reports to international organizations, request independent investigations and remind people that protecting relief supplies is not a political favor. It is a matter of legal obligations. The strength of a case does not depend only on outrage. It depends on strike coordinates, timings, images, medical certificates, testimonies, ambulance numbers and the presumed chain of command.

The municipalities must manage the aftermath. When an ambulance is destroyed, you have to find another one. When a crew is killed, it is necessary to support the families and reorganize the guards. When a soldier is injured or killed, the road must be secured differently. These tasks appear administrative. Yet they are vital. South Lebanon is still held together by a network of small local decisions, taken by mayors, doctors, volunteers, soldiers and families.

The population mainly remembers one image: that of the ambulance which no longer guarantees safety. In war, medical emblems and flashing lights are used to signal a rescue mission. When they no longer protect, trust collapses. Families hesitate to call for help. The injured dread the journey. The volunteers wonder whether they should move forward or wait. This rupture touches the very heart of civilian life in times of war.

The situation finally requires a political reading. Targeting or hitting civil defense, paramedics and the Lebanese army does not only produce deaths. This disorganizes the Lebanese response, weakens the state and accentuates the departure of residents. The army speaks of systematic hostile operations. The Ministry of Health speaks of direct strikes against ambulances. Humanitarians speak of violated protection. The terrain shows rescuers killed, soldiers injured, a soldier who fell on a motorbike and villages still waiting to know who will be able to come to their aid during the next strike.

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