Israel has bombed Beirut and pushed deeper into southern Lebanon as it outlines plans to occupy the region. This comes as Oxfam says Israeli forces are destroying water and sanitation infrastructure across Lebanon, repeating the same pattern used in Gaza. In just four days during the first weeks of fighting, Israel damaged at least seven critical water sources in the Beqaa area, cutting off clean water to nearly 7,000 people. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch documented Israel’s use of white phosphorus munitions over the southern Lebanese town of Yohmor on March 3, firing the incendiary weapon over residential areas and sparking fires in at least two homes. Ahmad Baydoun, an open-source intelligence researcher at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, mapped 248 Israeli white phosphorus strikes across southern Lebanon, finding 39% hit civilian areas.
Lebanese authorities say Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,000 people since March 2 and forced more than 1 million people to flee from their homes. In southern Lebanon, a dozen paramedics gathered Wednesday as they prepared to bury two of their colleagues killed in Israeli attacks. This is Mohammed Sleiman, a chief paramedic and father of Joud Sleiman, who was killed in an Israeli strike.
Mohammed Sleiman: “These are two men wearing the clothes of paramedics, on a motorcycle for paramedics, which had a paramedic flag and label on it, paramedic lights on it, wearing helmets. Everything about them says they are paramedics.”
