Israeli strikes kill at least twelve Lebanese rescue workers and fifteen people in Syria | News, sports, jobs

Firefighters and security officers gather near a destroyed building hit during an Israeli airstrike in Damascus, Syria, Thursday, November 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)

BEIRUT (AP) — An Israeli airstrike killed at least 12 Lebanese rescue workers Thursday at a civil defense center in the eastern city of Baalbek, according to health and rescue officials, hours after state media in Syria reported Israeli attacks in and around the capital. at least 15 people killed.

Lebanese aid workers were digging through the rubble on Thursday evening to search for more of their colleagues still trapped beneath the destroyed rescue center, the group said in a statement. At least three civil defense members were injured.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Lebanese Civil Defense Forces have no ties to the militant group Hezbollah, and they provide crucial rescue and medical services in one of the world’s most war-torn countries.

The Ministry of Health condemned what it said “barbaric attack on a Lebanese state health center,” add that “It is the second Israeli attack on an emergency health care facility in less than two hours.”

In southern Lebanon, an Israeli attack on the village of Arabsalim targeted the Health Authority Association, a civil defense and rescue group linked to Hezbollah, killing six people, including four paramedics, the Health Ministry said.

Earlier, Israel carried out at least two airstrikes on the western Damascus neighborhood of Mazzeh and one of the suburbs of the Syrian capital Qudsaya, killing at least 15 people and wounding another 16, the Syrian state news agency said. An Associated Press journalist on the ground in Mazzeh said a five-story building was damaged by a rocket that hit the basement.

The Israeli military said it had hit infrastructure sites and command centers of the militant group Islamic Jihad.

In Syria, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad official said the attack in Mazzeh targeted one of their offices, and several members were killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The airstrikes took place shortly before Ali Larijani, an adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, was due to meet representatives of Palestinian factions at the Iranian embassy in Mazzeh in Syria’s capital.

The Israeli military says Islamic Jihad participated along with the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the October 7, 2023, attacks from Gaza on Israel, which killed about 1,200 people – mostly civilians – and kidnapped 250 others.

The subsequent war between Israel and Hamas has spread to the wider region, affecting Lebanon and Syria and leading to attacks between Israel and Iran. The war has left much of Gaza in ruins and killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities who do not distinguish between civilians and fighters.

Israeli warplanes intensified airstrikes in Lebanon on Thursday, targeting several areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, including the outskirts of the port city of Tire and Nabatieh province, the National News Agency said.

Throughout the day, sporadic airstrikes targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs, marking a marked increase in attacks on the district over the past two days, with the Israeli army issuing evacuation warnings for several locations and buildings in the suburbs.

The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah targets in the Dahiyeh area, including weapons storage facilities and command centers. Military spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israel did so last week “I hit more than 300 targets from the air throughout Lebanon, including about 40 targets in the heart of the Dahiyeh in Beirut.”

Lebanese state media said an earlier Israeli airstrike hit a building in Baalbek, killing at least nine people and wounding five others. The strike came without warning. The Israeli military did not immediately comment and the target was unclear.

A World Bank report estimated Thursday that Lebanon has suffered $8.5 billion in physical damage and economic losses as a result of 13 months of war.

Hezbollah began shooting at Israel on October 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Since then, Israeli attacks and bombings in Lebanon have killed at least 3,380 people, while the number of wounded has exceeded 14,400, the Health Ministry said on Thursday. The dead included 658 women and 220 children.

76 people have been killed in Israel, including 31 soldiers.

Before the war intensified on September 23, Hezbollah said it had lost nearly 500 members, but the group has since stopped releasing statements about its killed fighters.

UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix said during a visit to Lebanon that the UN remains committed to keeping its peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, in place at all its positions in southern Lebanon, despite intense ongoing fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants.

UNIFIL has continued to monitor the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah across the border known as the Blue Line, despite Israeli calls for peacekeepers to withdraw five kilometers from the border. UNIFIL has accused Israel of deliberately destroying surveillance equipment, and 13 peacekeepers have been injured in the fighting.

In addition, Israeli media reported on Thursday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, has been questioned by police on suspicion of altering official documents related to the October 7 Hamas attacks in favor of his boss.

According to multiple reports, Braverman is suspected of changing the time stamp of a conversation Netanyahu had with his military secretary in the first minutes of the attack. The reports were confirmed by an Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

Netanyahu’s office had no immediate comment. It was not immediately clear why Braverman made the change.

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Aji reported from Damascus, Syria. Abby Sewell in Beirut and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.