Lebanon says two paramedics among 13 killed in Israeli strikes

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - BEIRUT— Israel has intensified military operations in southern Lebanon ahead of diplomatic talks scheduled in the United States to find a way to end the war.

Israeli and Lebanese officials are expected to meet again in Washington on Thursday as a US-mediated ceasefire has failed to stop the war between Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah..

Israeli air strikes have killed at least 13 people in southern Lebanon, state media said.

Overnight, six people were killed and seven others were injured when a house in Kfar Dounine was hit, according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA).

Theescalation comes as continued exchanges along the border raises concerns of a wider Middle East war with global powers urging restraint while ceasefire negotiations remain fragile and uncertain.

On Tuesday afternoon, Lebanon's health ministry said two paramedics from the state-run Lebanese Civil Defense emergency service were killed and a third was injured in an Israeli strike on Nabatieh, as they carried out a rescue mission in response to an earlier attack that killed one person.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun expressed "sadness and regret at the killing of two Civil Defence members" in Nabatieh while emphasizing that "the continued Israeli aggression hinders efforts to restore calm".

The health ministry accused Israeli forces of deliberately targeting the paramedics.

"This targeting constitutes further evidence of the Israeli enemy's blatant violation of international humanitarian law and its full disregard for all international norms," it said.

The ministry said on Monday that 108 emergency medical services and healthcare workers had been killed in Lebanon during the war, with more than 140 Israeli attacks recorded on ambulances and medical facilities.

NNA reported a strike in the Jiyeh area, located around 20 kilometers south of Beirut, that targeted a car travelling along the strategic coastal highway that connects the Lebanese capital to southern parts of the country.

The incident comes just days after two similar strikes targeted vehicles on the same route on Saturday.

NNA also reported that a Syrian man was killed and his wife wounded when an Israeli drone targeted a motorcycle they were riding on a road in the Tayr Debba area on Tuesday.

Hezbollah fighters had also launched explosive-laden drones toward Israeli troops operating in southern Lebanon without causing any casualties, it added.

A further three people were killed in an attack on Jabshit on Tuesday, NNA reported.

Hezbollah said it had targeted Israeli troops in Naqoura, Bayada and Houla in southern Lebanon with drones, as well as a soldier in Kibbutz Manara in northern Israel.

The conflict started on March 2, two days after the US and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran. Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel, and Israel responded with widespread air strikes and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.

At least 2,869 people have so far been killed in Lebanon, including at least 380 since the ceasefire came into force, according to the Lebanese health ministry, whose figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Israeli authorities say 18 soldiers and four civilians have been killed over the same period.