14 minutes agoDavid GrittenReutersSmoke billows from the Nabatieh area in southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike on WednesdayIsraeli strikes killed at least nine people in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, authorities said, as the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah said it fired rockets into northern Israel.Lebanon's health ministry said the dead included two paramedics whose ambulance was hit in a strike in the southern Chehour area. A car was also struck just south of the capital Beirut.Meanwhile, Israel's military said it intercepted a drone and two projectiles that crossed the border. Hezbollah said it targeted a gathering of Israeli troops.The incidents tested a partial ceasefire agreed on Monday, which Lebanon said would see Israel refrain from bombing Beirut, in exchange for Hezbollah not attacking Israel.Israeli and Lebanese diplomats held a second day of talks in Washington on Wednesday to discuss ways to shore up the deal.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that he hoped they would produce "an action plan on a track for security in [Lebanon], independent from Hezbollah".Lebanon was drawn into the war between the US, Israel and Iran on 2 March, when Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel in retaliation for an Israeli strike that killed Iran's supreme leader. Israel responded with an air campaign across Lebanon and a ground invasion in the south.A US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon on 16 April failed to stop the fighting, and last week Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to intensify its strikes on Hezbollah and advance deeper into Lebanon in response to drone and rocket attacks on communities in northern Israel.At least 3,516 people have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the war, according to the country's health ministry. Its figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.The UN says more than one million people have also registered themselves as displaced in Lebanon, where Israeli evacuation orders cover more than an eighth of the country.Israel says 26 of its soldiers and four Israeli civilians have been killed on both sides of the border during the war.ReutersA funeral was held in Wardaniyeh, southern Lebanon, for six members of the same family who were killed in an Israeli strikeLebanese media reported Israeli strikes across the south of the country on Wednesday.The health ministry said four Syrians and two Palestinians were killed in a strike in the al-Housh area, which is just south of the coastal city of Tyre.The ministry also said that two paramedics were killed and a third was seriously wounded when Israeli forces "directly targeted an ambulance" in the Chehour area, which is about 14km (9 miles) to the east. The ambulance belonged to the Risala Scouts Association, which is affiliated with the Amal movement, an ally of Hezbollah.The ministry accused the Israeli military of "demonstrating contempt for international humanitarian law", which specifically protects medical personnel.At least 128 paramedics and healthcare workers have been killed in Israeli attacks on ambulances and medical facilities over the past three months, according to the ministry.There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. In the past, it has claimed that ambulances are being used for military purposes, without providing any evidence.The Lebanese army, meanwhile, said that one of its soldiers was killed in an Israeli air strike on the road between Nabatieh and Kfar Tebnit, about 27km north-east of Tyre. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that his motorbike was targeted by a drone.The army said another two Lebanese soldiers were injured in a separate Israeli strike on their vehicle on the road between Deir Zahrani and Nabatieh.It denounced what it called "a pattern of deliberate strikes targeting army personnel, vehicles and positions" by Israeli forces.NNA also reported an Israeli strike on a car on the busy coastal highway in th
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