Dozens of paramedics in bright red uniforms shuffle around a coffin. The victim is one of their own.
Youssef Assaf, a volunteer paramedic with the Lebanese Red Cross, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on March 9, while on a rescue mission in Majdal Zoun, southern Lebanon. His funeral drew hundreds of first responders, marching in a seaside procession in the Mediterranean city of Tyre, his mother's cries heard over the shuffle.
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 targeted — something Israel denies.
Whenever Red Cross ambulances rush to the scene of any attack, they send their coordinates to United Nations peacekeepers, who then notify Israel.
They followed that protocol on March 9, when Assaf got out of his ambulance at the scene of an air strike to assist the wounded — and was hit by another attack. After his killing, the Red Cross' director of emergency medical services, Alexy Nehme, says he sent a message back through that same mechanism to Israel, "as a complaint and a question. Why? Why us?"
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