In early October 2025, Lebanese paramedic Haj Qassem Sultan stood outside Marjayoun Government Hospital in southern Lebanon and addressed Lebanese TV.
“Our message is clear. Even if we are killed one by one, we will not abandon our duty,” he said. “We will continue to serve Khiam and Marjayoun and Al-Taybeh and Debbine and all of our sacred land.”
He was attending a memorial for seven of his colleagues who were killed exactly one year earlier in an Israeli airstrike on ambulances parked outside the hospital. Five other paramedics, including Sultan, were wounded in the attack, in what human rights groups said was an apparent war crime.
On Friday, Sultan was killed in another Israeli strike on an Islamic Health Authority (IHA) medical center in Burj Qalaouiyah in southern Lebanon’s Bint Jbeil District. The bombing destroyed the facility, killing 12 people, including on-duty doctors, paramedics, nurses, and three patients.
The majority of the victims worked with the IHA, a healthcare and emergency service provider affiliated with Hezbollah that operates rescue and medical services in Beirut’s southern suburbs and across much of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.
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