Israel Killed Over a Dozen Lebanese Paramedics in Three Days, Now Claiming That Ambulances Are “Hezbollah” Targets

Among the most targeted groups of Israel’s expanded war on Lebanon have been medical workers. Hezbollah’s Islamic Health Authority has been the hardest hit.

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A man wearing the logo of the Hezbollah-linked Islamic Health Organisation stands in the remains of a health centre in Bourj Qalaway, following an Israeli attack. Photo by Sally Hayden/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images.

BEIRUT, LEBANON—In early October 2025, Lebanese paramedic Haj Qassem Sultan stood outside Marjayoun Government Hospital in southern Lebanon and addressed Lebanese TV.

“Our message is clear. Even if we are killed one by one, we will not abandon our duty,” he said. “We will continue to serve Khiam and Marjayoun and Al-Taybeh and Debbine and all of our sacred land.”

He was attending a memorial for seven of his colleagues who were killed exactly one year earlier in an Israeli airstrike on ambulances parked outside the hospital. Five other paramedics, including Sultan, were wounded in the attack, in what human rights groups said was an apparent war crime.

On Friday, Sultan was killed in another Israeli strike on an Islamic Health Authority (IHA) medical center in Burj Qalaouiyah in southern Lebanon’s Bint Jbeil District. The bombing destroyed the facility, killing 12 people, including on-duty doctors, paramedics, nurses, and three patients.

The majority of the victims worked with the IHA, a healthcare and emergency service provider affiliated with Hezbollah that operates rescue and medical services in Beirut’s southern suburbs and across much of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.

Sultan “was very loved, very respected,” IHA spokesperson Mahmoud Karaki told Drop Site News. “He was always present among the people. Everyone knew him.”

The day after the attack, Israel doubled down on its attacks on emergency workers with its military spokesperson, claiming without evidence that Hezbollah was making “military use of medical facilities and ambulances” and that occupation forces would target them if they did not cease.

A strike on Monday on a house in Kfar Sir, just north of the Litani River killed one person. When an ambulance from the IHA arrived, a second strike killed two paramedics and wounded another, according to the state-run National News Agency. Two more IHA ambulances were targeted on Monday in separate strikes, killing four more paramedics.

“Some of our personnel have been killed at our medical centers, others while they were out in the field, trying to pull people out from under the rubble,” he said. “The exact place they went to do their rescue work was targeted again once they arrived,” he added, a tactic known as a double tap strike.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, condemned the escalating attacks on medical workers in Lebanon. “These incidents highlight the ongoing assault on Lebanon’s healthcare system, which is crucial for the populations it serves,” Ghebreyesus wrote in a social media post. “WHO condemns this tragic loss of life and emphasizes that health workers must always be protected. According to international humanitarian law, medical personnel and facilities should never be attacked or militarized.”

Israel dramatically escalated its assault on Lebanon with relentless airstrikes and ground incursions on March 2, two days after the U.S. and Israel began striking Iran. Last week Israel ordered the forced displacement of all of southern Lebanon and launched a ground invasion. Over the past two weeks, at least 850 people have been killed across the country, including over 100 children. More than 850,000 people have been displaced. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz likened the operation to the genocidal assault on Gaza and said on Monday that Lebanese residents in the south of the Litani River would not be able to return to their homes indefinitely.

Among the most targeted groups of Israel’s expanded military campaign have been medical workers. Over the past two weeks, Israeli attacks have struck 13 medical and ambulance centers and forced five major hospitals to shut down, according to the health ministry. At least 38 have been killed so far, including personnel from the IHA, the Red Cross, and the Islamic Risala Scout Association, a medical and rescue organization affiliated with Lebanon’s Amal Movement. The IHA has been the hardest hit, with more than two dozen killed, according to Karaki.

The Israeli military itself has been accused of using ambulances in military operations in Lebanon. Most notably, during its attack on the town of Nabi Chit in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley last week that killed 41 people, the Lebanese Army accused Israeli commandos of moving through the area using ambulances marked with the insignia of the IHA.

Human rights groups say Israel’s targeting of medical personnel and infrastructure is part of a deadly pattern that emerged during Israel’s assault on Gaza. Hospitals in the enclave were systematically bombed, raided, and destroyed and some 1,700 health care workers were killed during the first two years of the genocide, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. During Israel’s assault on Lebanon between October 8, 2023 and late November 2024 when a “ceasefire” was put into effect, Israeli attacks killed at least 222 medical and civil defense personnel and injured hundreds more, according to the Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

Researchers with Amnesty International examined four cases in which Israeli forces struck first responders in Lebanon during that period. According to Kristine Bekerle, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, the organization found no evidence that the facilities or vehicles hit in those attacks were being used for military purposes at the time.

“We looked at attacks affecting the Islamic Health Authority, but we also examined strikes on organizations with no connection to Hezbollah, like the Lebanese Civil Defense and the Red Cross, and in different parts of the country,” Bekerle told Drop Site. “We saw a range of civilian actors—some loosely affiliated with Hezbollah, others with no affiliation at all—being killed, wounded, or targeted.”

“From an international law perspective, civilians and civilian objects should not be targeted for attack,” Bekerle added. “But healthcare workers, facilities, and ambulances are especially protected.”

Bekerle noted that the Israeli military has a long record of publishing lies, but even if the claim were true, it would not justify broad attacks. Under international humanitarian law, an army must demonstrate that a specific object is being used for military purposes, for example, a particular ambulance in a particular location at a specific time. “You cannot simply declare that all ambulances are legitimate targets,” Bekerle said.

“What we’re seeing between Lebanon and Gaza is this big broadening of what constitutes an ‘acceptable’ target to the military,” she added. “The reality is that a civilian entity affiliated with a non-state armed group is not automatically targetable.”

Israel’s massive and unprecedented displacement orders in Lebanon have made the work of Lebanese first responders all the more dangerous.

Moussa Shaalan, a medic with the Lebanese Civil Defense in the coastal city of Sour, told Drop Site that the current war is the hardest he has experienced in more than three decades of service.

“The difference this time is that there are many more people in the villages,” Shaalan said. “They say they can’t afford the rent in other parts of the country…and that when they fled north, they were humiliated. They tell you they would rather die at home,” he added. “So the demand for emergency services under dangerous conditions is much higher.”

Most of the places being struck are still densely populated and full of children, Shaalan added. He fears the death toll will continue to rise, particularly since Israel has begun targeting civilian infrastructure such as bridges and roads that enable rescue teams to reach the wounded.

Karaki, the IHA spokesperson, said Israel’s attacks on first responders are part of a broader effort to force people from the region.

“The presence of a team of first responders offers a last remaining sense of security for people who have chosen to remain steadfast on their land,” he said. “That’s why the occupation targets healthcare workers who have nothing to do with what’s happening on the battlefield.”