STORY: 3 killed, 2 injured in Israeli airstrike on S. Lebanon
SHOOTING TIME: Sept. 9, 2024
DATELINE: Sept. 11, 2024
LENGTH: 00:02:25
LOCATION: Beirut
CATEGORY: MILITARY

SHOTLIST:
1. Official funerals of civil defense workers
2. Arrival of coffins
3. Crowds participating in funerals
4. SOUNDBITE 1 (Arabic): ALI SAFIEDDINE, Civil defense official
5. SOUNDBITE 2 (Arabic): ALI KHREIS, Amal Movement MP
6. Crowds participating in funerals
7. Coffins of civil defense workers arriving at the prayer ground

STORYLINE:

Three personnel of the Lebanese Civil Defense were killed and two others wounded on Saturday in an Israeli drone strike on southern Lebanon, according to Lebanese military sources.

The sources, who spoke anonymously, told Xinhua that an Israeli drone fired an air-to-ground missile at a group of Civil Defense personnel who were trying to extinguish a fire caused by a previous Israeli airstrike on Wadi Froun in the border area of southern Lebanon.

The sources also said that Israeli warplanes and drones carried out six raids on Saturday on four border towns and villages in southern Lebanon, and Israeli artillery shelled nine villages and towns in the eastern and central sectors with 35 shells, causing several fires and material damage.

SOUNDBITE 1 (Arabic): ALI SAFIEDDINE, Civil defense official
"We consider Israel targeting the Lebanese civil defense as a message of frustration as the civil defense is present on the ground all the time. Targeting a fire truck carrying the international emblem of civil defense is a clear violation of all the UN treaties and the truck was 25 kilometers away from the borderline."

SOUNDBITE 2 (Arabic): ALI KHREIS, Amal Movement MP
"What happened is a serious crime committed by the Israeli enemy against a Lebanese civil defense team though the enemy knows very well that these martyrs are civil defense workers who were doing their job. "

Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on Oct. 8, 2023, following a barrage of rockets launched by the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah toward Israel in support of Hamas' attack on Israel the day before. Israel then retaliated by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Beirut.
(XHTV)