Jerusalem, Oct 5 (EFE).- Israel bombed a mosque next to a hospital near the border in southern Lebanon overnight which the armed forces said was concealing a command center belonging to Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah.
In a statement Saturday, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said Israel’s air force “struck Hezbollah terrorists who were operating within a command center that was located inside a mosque adjacent to the Salah Ghandour Hospital.”
“The command center was used by the Hezbollah terrorists to plan and execute terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel,” the Israeli military added.
No casualty figures have been released yet.
The Israeli army said it had notified residents and had been in with senior figures in several localities to identify that Hezbollah was using hospitals.
On Friday, at least five hospitals were evacuated in southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut known as the Dahye after being hit by relentless Israeli shelling.
The Lebanese National News Agency (ANN) said that four hospitals in the south were completely out of service and have been evacuated. All of them are located in towns close to the border with Israel which have been hit by the attacks.
The fourth hospital that had to close its doors in the south was that of Marjayoun, an area further north of the border but which has been hit hard in recent days.
The fifth was St. Theresa’s Medical Center, in Beirut’s southern suburbs that were again heavily bombed on Friday.
Israel has insisted that it has made significant efforts not to involve civilian infrastructure, and accuses Hezbollah of making “cynical” use of schools and hospitals.
Hezbollah, which functions as a militia but is also a political party, is involved in managing a number of hospitals throughout the country.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has been simmering since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip in October 2023, but violence escalated to an unprecedented level in mid-September, when Israeli forces began a massive bombing campaign that has leveled entire towns and villages.
For the past week, Dahye has been the target of intense waves of air strikes on an almost daily basis.
Since the beginning of hostilities, Israeli attacks have killed nearly 2,000 people and forced 1.2 million to flee their homes, mainly in the south and east of Lebanon. EFE
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