By Olivia Le Poidevin and Jihed Abidellaoui
GENEVA/BEIRUT, April 13 (Reuters) – The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was deeply concerned by attacks on medical workers in Lebanon after a deadly strike on a Red Cross centre in the country on Monday and the death of a volunteer a day earlier.
Lebanon’s state news agency reported that Monday’s strike, which it said was carried out by Israel, killed one person and damaged Lebanese Red Cross vehicles.
The ICRC said the Lebanese Red Cross centre in the district of Tyre, a city on Lebanon’s coast, was hit by the strike. It did not comment on who was responsible or give details of the victim.
Israel’s military it had carried out a targeted strike on a “Hezbollah terrorist” in Tyre on Monday and was investigating reports the strike had caused damage to a Red Cross centre. The military did not identify the individual who it said it had killed.
On Sunday, the Lebanese Red Cross said one of its volunteers, Hassan Badawi, had died from his injuries after a strike by an Israeli drone in the district of Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon.
Badawi had volunteered for the Lebanese Red Cross since 2022, his friend Ahmed Qassam told Reuters during his funeral on Monday.
He was buried in a temporary grave in Choueifat, south of Beirut, as it was not possible to access Badawi’s home village of Sultaniyah in Bint Jbeil district, due to intensive fighting there. Israeli troops on Monday launched an attack to seize the key border town in southern Lebanon.
“I was waiting for a phone call from him to tell me, ‘Mother, I’m fine.’ He didn’t call me. My heart was burning,” Badawi’s mother, Ahlam Badawi, said.
“They (the Israeli military) attacked him directly. He was just doing humanitarian work. He was not doing anything more,” Badawi’s father, Ali Badawi, added.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the accusation. Earlier, it had said it had struck a “Hezbollah terrorist” in the area and that it was reviewing the incident after it received reports of injury to a Red Cross team.
Agnes Dhur, head of the ICRC delegation in Lebanon, said in a statement on Monday: “The loss of those who dedicate their lives to saving others is gravely concerning, given the impact on the civilians who depend on their help.”
“Humanitarian and medical personnel must be protected. They must be allowed to reach and help the wounded, and return unharmed,” she added.
The latest war in Lebanon began on March 2, when Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired at Israeli positions in support of its patron Iran.
Israel has since escalated its air and ground campaign in the country where its operations have killed nL1N40V02V more than 2,000 people, displaced more than 1 million and triggered a warning nL8N40S1AG that hospitals could run out of life-saving supplies.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin in Geneva and Jihed Abidellaoui in Beirut; additional reporting by Thomas Perry in Beirut and Alexander Cornwell and Steven Scheer in Jerusalem, Editing by Miranda Murray, Aidan Lewis and Andrew Heavens)
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