Lebanon Reports 54 Health Workers Killed as Israel Denies Targeting First Responders

Youssef Assaf stepped out of his ambulance in Majdal Zoun on March 9 to help the wounded from an Israeli airstrike. Seconds later, a second strike killed him. He was a volunteer paramedic with the Lebanese Red Cross, and his death followed the safety protocol exactly: his team had already radioed their coordinates to United Nations peacekeepers, who relayed the information to Israel.

Lebanon's government says at least 54 health workers are among more than 1,400 people killed by Israel during the current invasion. Some human rights groups say first responders are being deliberately targeted, something Israel denies.

Hundreds of first responders marched at Assaf's funeral in the Mediterranean city of Tyre, his mother's cries audible over the procession. After his death, Alexy Nehme, director of emergency medical services for the Lebanese Red Cross, sent a message back through the UN notification mechanism to Israel "as a complaint and a question. Why? Why us?" Nehme says he never got a reply.

The Israeli military said it targeted a "Hezbollah military-use building" that day, and that "some people" arrived in the area "in the seconds between when the munitions were fired and the moment of impact," but were not intentionally targeted.

The question of intent runs through every aspect of this conflict's toll on medical workers, and the answer differs sharply depending on who is responding. The majority of first responders killed in this war have been with units run by Islamic political groups, including Hezbollah, which has its own ambulance service. Unlike the Red Cross, it does not notify Israel of its movements.

Mohammed Farhat, operations director for the Islamic Health Authority, which includes Hezbollah's ambulance service, described working under the threat of so-called "double-tap" strikes, in which Israel strikes a Hezbollah operative, then waits for first responders to arrive, and strikes again. The Israeli military denies any such policy.

Farhat says he has lost many colleagues, whom he says deserved legal protection as health workers regardless of their political affiliation.

At the Lebanese Red Cross control room in southern Beirut, the weight of the war is constant. George Ghafary, the lead ambulance dispatcher, oversees a team that fields some 1,500 calls a day. "These are my colleagues, my friends," Ghafary said. "I can't show the team my worry and anxiety, but deep down, it's there." He tracks dispatched crews by GPS and stays on the line with them by phone and walkie-talkie.

Human Rights Watch researcher Ramzi Kaiss said his organization documented three attacks in 2024 targeting health workers: on paramedics at a civil defense center in Beirut, and on an ambulance and a hospital in southern Lebanon, killing 14 paramedics. "We found that these attacks amount to apparent war crimes," Kaiss said. HRW added that it is too early to draw firm conclusions about the current phase of the conflict, but Kaiss said Israel's history of strikes on health infrastructure in both Gaza and Lebanon informs how his organization is monitoring the ongoing casualties.

For the Red Cross, the protocol that was supposed to protect Assaf remains in place. Ambulances still transmit their coordinates. UN peacekeepers still pass them to Israel. And first responders still run toward the strikes.