BEIRUT, OCT 17 – Lebanon reported that 16 people were killed in an Israeli attack yesterday on a municipal building in the southern city of Nabatiyeh, including an aid team attending a crisis management meeting.
Nabatiyeh mayor Ahmad Kahil was among those killed in the attack that hit two municipal buildings as an emergency meeting was underway, the province’s governor Howaida Turk said, describing it as a ‘massacre’.
The attack was among 11 attacks on the city of Nabatiyeh and its surrounding areas, Turk told AFP.
According to the health ministry, 16 people were killed and 52 others were injured in the attack on the municipal building.
The United Nations (UN) humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon, Imran Riza, said “the devastating attack has claimed the lives of more civilians and local authorities working to provide aid, with the attack occurring as a crisis meeting was being held in the municipality ”.
In a statement via email, Riza mourned the death of three “aid team members who have been working with the UN and humanitarian partners for over a year”.
“This is an important time to demand respect for the rules of war,” he said.
Israel’s military said its forces attacked “dozens of Hezbollah targets in the Nabatiyeh area and dismantled underground infrastructure” used by the Iran-backed armed group in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s civil defense said the attack killed one of its staff who was in the municipal building with his colleagues.
Rescuers allied with Hezbollah fighters said the attack destroyed medical facilities, with two doctors among the dead. – AFP
