Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Friday condemned an alleged Israeli strike on a residence housing journalists as a “new chapter of war crimes,” as two people were killed in northern Israel by shelling from Lebanon.
Three media workers were killed and three others injured in an Israeli airstrike in the town of Hasbiyya, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on Friday.
After meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in London, Mikati accused Israel of deliberately targeting media representatives in order to deter journalists from reporting on its offensive in southern Lebanon against the Iran-back Hezbollah militia.
Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary said in a post on X that 18 journalists were present at the residence when it was hit.
Footage from the scene showed a destroyed building and wrecked cars, some of which were marked as press vehicles.
The pro-Iran Al Mayadeen TV reported that a cameraman and a technician linked to the broadcaster were killed early on Friday in an Israeli attack on the residence in the town of Hasbiyya.
The broadcaster Al Manar, a Hezbollah mouthpiece, said its cameraman was also killed in the strike.
Al Mayadeen head Ghassan Ben Jeddou held Israel fully responsible for what he said was a “war crime.”
There was no immediate comment from Israel.
Health Ministry says 163 workers killed in conflict
Maliki’s comments came more than three weeks after Israel launched its ground offensive in southern Lebanon, aiming to drive Hezbollah back from border regions.
The operation has been accompanied by massive Israeli strikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut, which have wiped out the militia’s leadership and threatened to draw Iran into a regional conflict.
Long-simmering tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, which last culminated in a major war in 2006, erupted again shortly after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched its unprecedented attacks on October 7, 2023.
Hezbollah and Israel spent almost a year exchanging fire across the border, leaving hundreds dead and thousands injured in Lebanon before the start of the Israeli offensive.
The fighting has also taken its toll on health workers in Lebanon, official figures showed on Friday, with at least 163 killed in Israeli attacks.
Some 272 others have been injured, the Lebanese Health Ministry added.
At least eight hospitals and more than 100 other medical facilities have had to cease operations due to Israeli attacks in the past years.
The World Health Organization said the figure corresponds to almost a third of all health facilities in the country.
Even before the fighting broke out, the health sector in Lebanon was under massive pressure. The Mediterranean country has been in the worst economic crisis in its history since 2019.
According to the health ministry, around 30% of doctors and nurses have already left the country due to the crisis.
Two killed in northern Israel
Northern Israel has also suffered amid the cross-border exchanges over the past year, as demonstrated again on Friday when two people were killed in shelling from Lebanon.
Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom said a 19-year-old woman and 21-year-old man were killed in Majd al-Kurm, an Arab-majority town in Galilee.
At least seven others were hospitalized with shrapnel wounds, including one with severe injuries.
According to the Israeli military, the incident saw a gym hit by shelling, amid a wave of 30 missiles fired towards the area.
Hezbollah meanwhile claimed responsibility for an attack on the neighbouring town of Karmiel. It said it had fired a volley of rockets at the town, which is predominantly Jewish.
Israel reports five soldiers killed
Casualties are also mounting in the Israeli military, which on Friday said five more soldiers have been killed in southern Lebanon.
The men were reservists aged between 28 and 51, it added.
Israeli media reported that a missile had exploded near the soldiers.
The military said four other soldiers were seriously injured in the incident, which took place on Thursday.
Another reservist was seriously wounded in Lebanon on Friday morning, it reported.
The latest deaths came after the Israeli military on Thursday announced the deaths of five other Israeli soldiers in two separate incidents in Lebanon.
According to media reports, a total of 26 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the beginning of the Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon more than three weeks ago.
UNIFIL reports further attacks
The ongoing conflict has led to repeated incidents with the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, which on Friday said its posts have again been attacked by the Israeli military.
Peacekeepers on duty at a permanent observation post in the southern Lebanese town of Dheira were watching on Tuesday as Israeli soldiers conducted house-clearing operations, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said.
“Upon realizing they were being observed, the [Israeli] soldiers fired at the post,” a UNIFIL statement said. “The duty guards withdrew to avoid being shot.”
On Wednesday, two medical teams who were in the village of Yarin to transfer a patient came under fire from unknown origin. One vehicle was immobilized and had to be left at the scene, UNIFIL said.
It added that in the evening that same day, a medical facility at a UNIFIL position in Beit Leif was hit by a shell or rocket of unknown origin, causing damage to buildings.
The peacekeeping mission said that two grenades or rockets “also of unknown origin” landed near a post in Kfar Shouba. There were no injuries in any of the incidents.
Despite the dramatic escalation and violence of the last few weeks between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, the peacekeepers will continue to monitor the situation in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL said.
“We will continue to carry out our assigned monitoring tasks,” it said.
The Israeli military and all other actors are obliged to ensure the security of UN personnel and property, it added.
UN highlights plights of refugees
Also on Friday, the UN refugee agency highlighted the plight of refugees fleeing the fighting in Lebanon, as a war monitor reported casualties at a border crossing to Syria following an Israeli strike.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in Geneva that 430,000 people have fled Lebanon for Syria alone since Israeli forces stepped up their offensive.
“The suffering of those people crossing does not end at the border,” said UNHCR spokeswoman Rula Amin, with a humanitarian catastrophe facing them in Syria.
The country’s infrastructure has been severely damaged since civil war broke out against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime following Arab Spring protests in 2011.
More than 90% of the Syrian population itself requires humanitarian aid, Amin said.
“These people are going to areas, towns and villages that have been really battered over the past 13 years,” she added.
Border crossings have also been attacked, causing dangers for both refugees and UN staff.
In the latest incident on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an Israeli attack targeting a Syrian military intelligence post at the Jousieh crossing left three military personnel dead.
The British-based watchdog said Israel was continuing its attacks on the Syrian-Lebanese border in an attempt to cut off the supply routes of the Iranian-allied Lebanese Hezbollah movement. The crossing was reportedly put out of service.
The Israeli military said it had struck Hezbollah infrastructure sites in the Jousieh crossing overnight and accused the militia of exploiting the border facility, controlled by Syrian government forces, to transfer weapons to attack Israel.
Israel has carried out a total of 125 attacks in war-torn Syria so far this year, according to the observatory.
It has been bombing targets in Syria to prevent Iran and its allied militias from expanding their military influence in the country, with an uptick in attacks since the beginning of the war in Gaza.
