Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organisation, says that nine paramedics have been killed in five attacks on healthcare facilities in southern Lebanon, bringing the total number of healthcare workers killed in the fighting to 51.

He notes that March has been the second-deadliest month for healthcare workers in Lebanon since the WHO began monitoring in 2023.

“More than 120 health workers have also been reportedly wounded since the escalation began in Lebanon on 2 March, overwhelmingly in the country’s south,” Ghebreyesus says in a statement.

“In today’s incidents, teams of medics working in five Lebanese villages were struck while on duty in the field,” he adds. “In Zoutar al-Sharqiya, five health workers were killed in a strike and two were injured, one critically. Two more health workers were killed and three wounded in Kfar Tibnit; one paramedic died in an attack at a health facility in Ghandouriyeh, while another was killed in a strike in Jezzine. Two were wounded in an attack on Kfar Dajjal.”