Lebanese Education and Higher Education Minister Rima Karami said the Israeli forces destroyed three schools in the country’s south after going through and stealing their contents, and rigging the buildings with explosives.
The schools were “looted” before using explosives to reduce them into “piles of ashes”, she said in a statement carried by Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) on Friday.
“The Israeli army looted the contents of these institutions, and then surrounded them with explosives, turning them into piles of ashes,” she said.
She said the demolished schools had now been added to the long list of educational institutions destroyed by the brutal Israeli regime forces in their attacks on southern Lebanon.
Karami said two of the destroyed schools were in Khiam, a municipality in Nabatieh Governorate, and one school in Bint Jbeil, also a municipality in the Nabatiye Governorate in Southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese official drew attention to the legal framework of international law that protects schools during armed conflicts and war, expressing outrage over the fact that the destruction of schools and educational centers in southern Lebanon by Israeli forces was taking place “before the eyes of the entire world.”
She stressed that international law recognizes schools, educational centers, hospitals and sports facilities as among the safest and most protected places, often used as refugee shelters during wars, disasters and other emergencies and crises.
Karami called on leaders of major powers to mount legitimate pressure on the arrogant and impudent Tel Aviv regime to halt the destruction and to keep educational institutions outside conflicts and wars.
On March 2, Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah launched military operations against the Israeli regime in response to its aggression against Iran, its repeated violations of the 2024 ceasefire, and its continued occupation of Lebanese territory in the country’s south.
Following the Iran-US ceasefire on 8 April, Tel Aviv was compelled to accept a ceasefire in Lebanon as well, after Tehran demanded an end to Israeli attacks on Lebanese soil as one of its primary conditions in indirect negotiations with Washington.
Tel Aviv and Beirut also signed a US-brokered framework agreement on June 26, which requires Israeli occupation forces’ withdrawal from all occupied Lebanese territory.
MNA