Twenty-one civil defence rescuers have been killed in two Israeli strikes on Lebanon, in one of the deadliest days for rescue workers since the fighting began between Israel and Hezbollah 13 months ago.
Thursday night’s airstrikes brought the total number of emergency workers killed by Israel in Lebanon to more than 200, most of them during the last two months.
In Douris, a small town on the outskirts of the ancient city of Baalbek in the Bekaa valley, 15 paramedics and five bystanders were killed when an airstrike hit a state civil defence centre.
Members of the civil defence were still searching for the remains of their colleagues on Friday afternoon, turning over the shattered concrete and sifting through rubble to find whatever pieces of flesh they could salvage. Though 15 bodies had been found, at least five were unrecognisable due to the force of the blast. Funerals were put on hold until the remains could be taken for DNA testing.
“Most of the people that were here yesterday were new, they were volunteers. We were always joking around, we were like brothers … I wish I had been with them,” said Haidar al-Afi, who has worked with the civil defence in Douris since 2006, as he searched the rubble.
Israel has been striking deeper inside Lebanon since September as it escalates the war against Hezbollah. The Douris airstrike was particularly shocking because it hit a state civil defence centre that was not affiliated with Hezbollah and killed more members of the state body than perhaps any other strike before it. Most of the healthcare workers killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon were affiliated with Hezbollah or its ally, the Amal party.
The bomb fell directly in the centre of the building’s salon, scattering furniture amid the rubble. The concrete facades of the neighbouring buildings were pockmarked and had black stains smeared across them – “where the bodies were flung”, a civil defence member said. Wasps swarmed the site, searching for remains alongside the paramedics.
“What did we do? What sins did we commit, what did my friends do to deserve this? I am so, so sick of the smell of the sites after they’re hit,” Afi said.
Among the dead was Bilal Raad, a 30-year veteran of the civil defence and the head of the state body for Baalbek-Hermel province, the largest district in Lebanon. His peers spoke of him glowingly and said that despite his senior position, he was always the first to arrive at strike sites.
Two hours before Israel struck Douris, it hit another civil defence centre in the town of Arab Salim, in the southern Nabatieh region, killing six first responders. The centre belonged to the Islamic Health Service, a Hezbollah-affiliated rescue organisation.
“The emergency workers were gathered outside the centre when it was bombed last night,” a rescue worker in the neighbouring city of Nabatieh said. He said he had been injured himself while on a rescue mission on Thursday when Israel struck a building next to where emergency responders were working.
After 13 months of war, more than 3,300 people have been killed and more than 14,400 wounded, Lebanon’s health ministry has said. The ministry condemned Thursday’s strikes and called on the international community to “put an end to these dangerous violations”.
Rights groups have condemned Israel’s killing of emergency responders and healthcare workers, some of which they say amount to apparent war crimes.
“With over 200 paramedics killed, the vast majority since September 2024, the country has reached a grim milestone,” said Ramzi Kaiss, the Lebanon researcher for Human Rights Watch. He added that since HRW had documented unlawful strikes against healthcare workers two weeks ago, the number of healthcare workers had increased at a “horrifying rate”.
International bodies including the World Health Organization have called on Israel to end its attacks on healthcare workers in Gaza and Lebanon. More than 885 healthcare workers have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank, the WHO said on 24 September.
Israel has accused Hezbollah of using ambulances and medical facilities to transport and store weapons. The Israeli military has not commented on the strike on the civil defence centre.
The surviving members of the civil defence in Douris said they had little faith that international bodies could protect them.
“We are putting our faith in God, what else can we do?” said Geryos Mansour, a rescue worker from the neighbouring town of Ferzol. He pointed to orange posters with blue triangles that were strewn across the rubble. The UN had distributed the posters – used as a protective sign during armed conflict to denote civil defence – to Douris just a few weeks ago.
