Scores of Lebanon’s paramedics killed in Israeli attacks

It was Hasan Badawi’s job to race toward the location of military strikes in southern Lebanon, where, as a paramedic, he tended to the maimed and dead. He was killed earlier this month while en route to his latest assignment — allegedly cut down by an Israeli drone.

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As a first responder, he is not alone.

Badawi, 31, a father of one with a baby on the way, was a volunteer medic with the Lebanese Red Cross. It is dangerous work helping others in this conflict.

On April 12, as Israeli forces moved toward the key Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbeil, so did Badawi.

His team wore the standard Lebanese Red Cross uniform — a bright-red jumpsuit bearing the organization’s insignia, with a large cross on the back and on the shoulders — and their ambulance was also clearly marked, according to the Lebanese Red Cross. Still, they were “directly targeted,” the organization said. One of Badawi’s colleagues was wounded.

The Red Cross said it had coordinated safe passage for the mission. The Israeli military said it had been targeting a Hezbollah member in a strike but was aware of reports of a Red Cross team being “affected” and that the strike was under review.

Badawi joined what aid groups say is a growing list of front-line medics and other health workers killed since Israel invaded Lebanon more than six weeks ago. According to the Lebanese health ministry, at least 100 health workers have died since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, setting off a wider war across the Middle East.

At least 95 emergency medical services workers and volunteers, mainly paramedics, are among those killed, with scores more injured since Israeli forces launched its ground and aerial assault in Lebanon after Hezbollah attacked Israel in support of Iran, according to the health ministry.

Aid groups warn that this reflects regional and worldwide trends of health and humanitarian workers being killed in recent years, with hundreds dying in Israeli operations in the Middle East.

A spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the growing toll on humanitarians, including first responders with the IFRC, around the world was undeniable.

“It is a matter of numbers,” said Tommaso Della Longa of the number of humanitarian workers killed, which he said had “skyrocketed” in recent years.

While paramedics are considered health workers, they are also often counted as humanitarians, particularly since many volunteer paramedics work with organizations like the IFRC, Della Longa said. International law, including the Geneva conventions, seeks to protect non-combatants like health workers as well as aid workers and civilians.

In a recent statement to the United Nations Security Council, Tom Fletcher, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, warned of a chilling pattern of humanitarians being killed in conflicts.

In 2025 alone, at least 326 aid workers died in 21 countries, bringing the total number of humanitarians killed in three years to over 1,010, he said. Of those killed across that three-year period, more than 560 died in the Gaza Strip and the Israel-occupied West Bank during Israeli operations, Fletcher said. At least 130 were killed in Sudan, 60 in South Sudan, 25 in Ukraine and 25 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The rise has not been an “accidental escalation,” he said, but instead marked a “collapse of protection” for humanitarians around the world amid a “broader attack on the U.N. Charter and on international humanitarian law.”

While Fletcher warned of a marked rise in humanitarians being killed in conflicts around the world, it is not the first time that aid workers have been at risk. During the war in Afghanistan, for example, an estimated 444 humanitarian workers were killed from October 2001 to April 2021, according to Brown University’s Costs of War Project.

Attacks ‘must stop’

Governments around the world have sounded the alarm over the growing number of humanitarian workers being killed in Lebanon. Canada issued a joint statement alongside the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Jordan and other nations warning that attacks on aid workers “must stop” and calling for international law to be upheld.