INTENSIVE Israeli air strikes smashed into homes across southern Lebanon yesterday, levelling schools, destroying infrastructure and overwhelming hospitals.
Nine members of the same family were killed in the town of Shebba, 23 were killed in a single airstrike in the Bekkaa Valley, the majority of them children, at least five children from the same family were killed in an Israeli attack on Beirut.
Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad said that 25 people had been killed since the morning and that more than 40 health care workers have been killed in Israeli attacks this week, adding that ambulances are subjected to direct targeting by Israel.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health announced the deaths of 88 people and the injury of 153 others in brutal Israeli attacks across the country over the past 24 hours, bringing the number of dead to more than 700, and the wounded to more than 2,600, most of them children and women.
The ministry announced that at least 50 children and 95 women have been killed in ongoing Israeli raids.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdullah Bouhebib, said the number of Lebanese displaced people is now half a million.
Margaret Harris, spokeswoman for the World Health Organisation (WHO), said that 5,000 people are currently hospitalised, including 777 injured in last week’s pager and walkie-talkie blasts, with 152 in a critical condition.
‘That means they’re not leaving the hospital for quite some time, and so every day of bombing and blasts fills up beds that can’t be unfilled,’ she said. ‘It was way beyond anything that normal planning, even for a horrific event like this, would have expected.’
UN humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, Imran Riza, said: ‘The recent escalations in Lebanon are nothing short of catastrophic. We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation.’
Air attacks on Lebanon in recent days have already killed more children per day than the 2006 war, which lasted for 33 days and killed about 1,200 people, the UN agency for children reported.
‘The average number of children killed per day in Lebanon this week is more than double the number of children killed per day during the country’s devastating 2006 conflict,’ UNICEF announced.
An estimated 400 children, or about 12 children per day, were killed then compared with 50 children killed in a span of two days, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.
