In Lebanon, paramedics delay rescue over fear of Israeli ‘double-tap’ strikes

Nabatieh: Emergency health workers in Lebanon’s Nabatieh city are reportedly delaying their rescue efforts in areas getting bombed to avoid being targeted in Israel’s “double-tap” strikes.

Several paramedic vehicles were seen waiting to start towards the emergency scene in a video posted by Sky News foreign correspondent Alex Crawford, who said it has now become a pattern for Israel to use the method of “double-tap” strikes.

A double-tap strike is when two strikes are carried out on the same target in the span of minutes, which often injures or kills the paramedics and civilians coming to aid the victims.

At least 42 paramedics have been killed by Israeli strikes, Lebanon’s health ministry stated, with many suffering from injuries, since March 2, as the country was pulled into the US-Israel-Iran war.

On Tuesday, on March 24, Ali Jaber and Joud Sleiman, two paramedics who set out on a motorcycle on a rescue mission, were hit by a strike, Reuters reported. Both were wearing emergency worker uniforms, and their vehicle was properly marked as an ambulance with flashing lights, the ministry said.

“A paramedic who ​doesn’t even have a knife, going to save someone else – they strike him and kill him. This has happened in ​more than one strike, more than one place,” said Ali’s father, Hassan Jaber.

Joud’s father Mohammed Sleiman, also Nabatieh’s chief paramedic, accused Israel of killing his son. He said that the nation “insists on damaging, on killing, on oppressing, on terrorising – and we insist on staying.”

Minab girls’ school attack, killing of Hind Rajab were double-tap strikes

There have been multiple accounts of Israel’s double-tap strikes, including the one that hit a girls’ school in Menab, Iran.

According to a Red Crescent worker, the principal and teachers moved a group of students to the prayer hall after the first bomb hit the school. The parents were immediately called, but the second bomb hit the area where they were taking shelter before the parents arrived.

At the time of the attack, there were 170 girls in the school, and 165 of the girls killed were between the ages of seven and 12.

One of the parents told the media that her daughter was among the group shifted to the prayer hall, but the second strike hit before he arrived at the school.

“My little girl was completely burned,” he said. “There was nothing left of her. We could only identify her from her school bag, which she was still holding. She was completely burned.”

The killing of six-year-old Hind Rajab in Gaza City was also reportedly a double-tap strike.

The six-year-old was killed in a strike on January 29, 2024, and the Red Crescent ambulance carrying two paramedics, with marked vehicles and sirens blaring, was also targeted by an Israeli tank fire.

There were a total of 12 casualties on the day as Hind was trapped in a car surrounded by the bodies of six family members.

A global campaign group, Avaaz, in their report, found clear proof that the killings of Hind and the emergency workers were grave violations of international combat law under the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute.

“By reconstructing the coordination and timing around the approved ambulance mission, it shows that there is substantial evidence of a deliberate ‘double-tap’ tactic – an initial military strike followed with a deliberately timed second strike targeting emergency responders and medical personnel who arrive to help,” the report shared by Al Jazeera said.