A barrage of rockets fired from Lebanon into northern Israel resulted in the deaths of four foreign workers and three Israelis on Thursday, marking one of the deadliest cross-border strikes since Israel's incursion into Lebanon, according to Israeli medical officials. In response, Israel launched airstrikes across Lebanon, reportedly targeting Hezbollah militants. Lebanese health authorities reported 24 fatalities from the strikes. Meanwhile, US diplomats are actively working to secure cease-fires in both Lebanon and Gaza, aiming to de-escalate the conflict as the Biden administration faces the final months before the upcoming US election.
In Gaza, Israeli airstrikes struck one of the last operational hospitals in the north, according to the World Health Organization. The attack severely damaged essential medical supplies recently delivered by UN agencies and caused a fire that impacted the hospital's dialysis unit, destroyed water tanks, and damaged the surgery building. D. Hussam Abu Safiya, the hospital director, reported that four medics were injured while attempting to control the blaze.
Calls for protection of Gaza’s hospitals
The Israeli military has not made any statement about a strike on the hospital, which it stormed last week after alleging it was harbouring Hamas militants. Gaza's Health Ministry on Thursday condemned Israeli attacks on the hospital and called on the international community to safeguard medical facilities in Gaza. Back-to-back deadly rocket attacks hit IsraelProjectiles from Lebanon crashed into an agricultural area in Metula, Israel's northernmost town, killing four foreign workers and an Israeli farmer, local officials said Thursday.
Hours later, the Israeli military reported another volley of some 25 rockets from Lebanon, striking an olive grove in a suburb of the northern Israeli port city of Haifa. That strike killed a 30-year-old man and 60-year-old woman while wounding two others, said Magen David Adom, Israel's main emergency medical organization. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are backed by Iran, Israel's regional adversary. Hezbollah did not immediately claim responsibility for Thursday's rocket fire. Israel's military said 90 projectiles were fired from Lebanon on Thursday.
Border workers’ safety concerns intensify
Hezbollah has been firing thousands of rockets, drones and missiles into Israel —and drawing fierce Israeli retaliatory strikes — over the past year since Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip triggered Israel's devastating war in the Palestinian enclave. The residents of Metula evacuated in October 2023, and only security officials and agricultural workers remain. The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, an Israeli organization that advocates for foreign workers, said authorities had put them in danger by allowing them to work along the border without proper protection.
Israeli bombs across Lebanon after evacuation warnings Israeli strikes killed 24 people in Lebanon on Thursday, among them 13 people in the country's eastern Bekaa Valley, according to Lebanon's state-run National News agency, a day after Israel's military warned residents there to evacuate. The warnings sent thousands of people fleeing and spread panic across the city, known for its colossal Roman ruins. The Lebanese Health Ministry reported that over the last 24 hours, Israeli bombardments killed 45 people and wounded 110 in various parts of the country.
(With inputs from AP)
ALSO READ: Hezbollah elects Naim Qassem as new leader weeks after Israel eliminated Hasan Nasrallah
