The ambulance headlamps were on, the blue light overhead was flashing, and another light illuminated the Red Cross flag when the first Israeli missile hit, shearing off the right leg of the man on the stretcher inside. As he lay screaming beneath fire and smoke, patients and ambulance workers scrambled for safety, crawling over glass in the dark. Then another missile hit the second ambulance.
Even in a war which has turned the roads of south Lebanon into killing zones, Israel's rocket strike on two clearly marked Red Cross ambulances on Sunday night set a deadly new milestone.
Six ambulance workers were wounded and three generations of the Fawaz family, being transported to hospital from Tibnin with what were originally minor injuries, were left fighting for their lives. Two ambulances were entirely destroyed, their roofs pierced by missiles.
The Lebanese Red Cross, whose ambulance service for south Lebanon is run entirely by volunteers, immediately announced it would cease all rescue missions unless Israel guaranteed their safety through the United Nations or the International Red Cross.
For the villages below the Litani river, the ambulances were their last link to the outside world. Yesterday, that too was gone, leaving the 100,000 people of Tyre district with no way of reaching hospital other than to take to the roads themselves, under the roar of Israeli war planes.
The fateful call to the Red Cross operations room came through at about 10pm - well after dark, a time when almost no Lebanese now dare venture out.
At the Red Cross office in Tyre, three volunteer medics dressed in their orange overalls, and got into their ambulance. The plan was to drive halfway, meet the local ambulance, and transfer the three patients to their vehicle to return to Tyre.
By Nader Joudi's reckoning, the ambulances had been stopped for barely two minutes. Two patients had been loaded: Ahmed Mustafa Fawaz, who had been hit by shrapnel in the stomach, and his son, Mohammed, 14. The volunteer attendant was just easing Jamila Fawaz, 80, inside and setting up a drip when the missile struck. He managed to get the old woman and the child outside, but there was no way to reach Mr Fawaz. "It was horrible," Mr Joudi said. "He was screaming, and we couldn't do anything."
One of the members of the three-man crew from Tibnin radioed for help when another missile plunged through the roof. Ambulance crew and patients retreated to the cellar of a nearby building, then waited to be rescued, trying as best as they could to help the injured. "Each of us treated ourselves. There was no light," said Kassem Shaalan, a medic from Tyre.
By the time patients and ambulance crew reached Tyre, Mr Fawaz was unconscious after losing one leg, and suffering severe fractures to the other. His son had lost part of a foot, and his mother's body was riddled with shrapnel. Mr Joudi had shrapnel wounds in his left arm, and Mr Shaalan cuts to the face and leg.
He was adamant that the ambulances, with their Red Cross insignia on the roof, were clearly visible from the air. "I don't think there can be a mistake in two bombings of two ambulances," he said.
Although the air strike marked the first time ambulances have been hit by Israel in this war, for Mr Shaalan and the other Red Cross volunteers it was only a matter of time. After two weeks of strikes designed to choke off possible supply lines to Hizbullah guerrillas, travel to many villages was just too dangerous. Coastal villages even within a few kilometers of Tyre are cut off. In some, corpses remain trapped in the rubble for days.
But nothing is more perilous than travelling by night, and no more so than just before midnight that Sunday when another Red Cross crew set off from Tyre to pick up their injured colleagues.
"I was trembling," said Ali Deeb, one of the volunteers on the mission. "It was too dangerous, and helicopters buzzing, and all through this, I am thinking one thing: the ambulance that left half an hour before you has already been injured, and you could be next." Later yesterday afternoon, two missiles landed in the building across the road from the Red Cross office.
The toll
Lebanese
Yesterday
Civilian deaths 8
Hizbullah deaths 0
Since outbreak
Military deaths 66
Civilian deaths 377
Wounded 1,550+
Israeli
Yesterday
Civilian deaths 0
Military deaths 4
Since outbreak
Military deaths 24
Civilian deaths 17
Wounded 360+
Seis trabajadores de ambulancias y sus pacientes fueron heridos cuando misiles israelíes alcanzaron vehículos de la Cruz Roja que llevaban a cabo una misión de rescate de heridos al sur del Líbano. El ataque tuvo lugar cerca de Qana, cuando una ambulancia de la ciudad de Tiro llegó al lugar para evacuar tres pacientes del pueblo fronterizo de Tibnin. Las dos ambulancias fueron destruidas al ser agujereadas por los misiles.

Los pacientes, miembros de la familia Fawaz, sufrieron heridas menores antes de ser alcanzados por los misiles. Después del ataque a la ambulancia uno de los hijos perdió una pierna y el otro está siendo tratado por heridas de las esquirlas.

La Cruz Roja libanesa exigió que Israel garantizara la seguridad a través de las Naciones Unidas o si no, la Cruz Roja internacional cesaría todas sus misiones de rescate. El servicio de ambulancias del sur del Líbano está compuesto totalmente por voluntarios. Esto significa que 100.000 personas del distrito de Tiro, y las poblaciones de la ribera del río Litani no tendrán más ambulancias para el transporte de heridos al hospital.

Un voluntario de la Cruz Roja, Saalan, dijo que aunque es la primera vez que las ambulancias ha sido atacadas por Israel en esta guerra, era cuestión de tiempo para que un incidente de esta naturaleza sucediera.

Un furgón de los Emiratos Árabes Unidos que llevaba suministros médicos fue alcanzado al oriente del Líbano, hecho que causó la muerte del conductor y que seis trabajadores de la Cruz Roja resultaran heridos.
 
Un corresponsal australiano informó desde la ciudad de Tiro que al menos 10 ambulancias libanesas pintadas con los emblemas de la Cruz Roja habían sido el objetivo de ataques aéreos por parte de Israel, matando más de una docena de pasajeros civiles en su camino hacia los hospitales.

El vocero del gobierno israelí dijo que el "''incidente en el cual los vehículos fueron alcanzados había sucedido en una región desde la cual se lanzaban los cohetes hacia Israel''".

La Cruz Roja y la Media Luna Roja internacional han establecido dos puestos en la ciudad de Tiro y en la población de Marjayoun hacia el este.