Israeli airstrikes killed nine people in southern Lebanon late on Wednesday, including paramedics who were preparing to respond to the first strike, the state-run National News Agency said.

That raises the number of people killed by Israeli strikes on Wednesday to 16, after an earlier attack hit a different paramedic centre linked to a Lebanese Sunni Muslim group, killing seven of the group’s members.

And earlier on Wednesday, the Shia militant group Hezbollah claimed responsibility for firing a barrage of rockets into the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona and a military base, which killed one person.

It said the rockets were in response to the deadly strike on the paramedics centre.

Lebanon Israel Palestinians
Women mourn during the funeral procession of paramedics who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Hebbariye village (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

The Lebanese news agency said Israel bombed the village of Teir Harfa after sunset, killing five, and a second strike killed four people as paramedics gathered near a cafe in the coastal town of Naqoura.

Hezbollah’s Islamic health society said two of its paramedics were killed in Teir Harfa while the Islamic Risala scout association, also a paramedic group, said one of its members was killed in the strike on Naqoura.

Hezbollah said two of its fighters were killed, without saying where.

The Amal movement, a Shia political and paramilitary organisation, said the strike on Naquora killed one of its local commanders, identified as Ali Mahdi.

Israel’s military said it had struck a Hezbollah military compound in Teir Harfa and a “terrorist cell” in Naqoura.

Israel said the earlier strike in Hebbariye killed a member of the Sunni al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, and several other militants. It said the man was involved in attacks against Israel.

Hezbollah has been firing rockets into northern Israel since the day after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7.

The near-daily violence has mostly been confined to the area along the Lebanon-Israel border.

Nearly 240 Hezbollah fighters and about 40 civilians have died in Lebanon.

The fighting has killed nine civilians and 11 soldiers in Israel.

Elsewhere, Israeli authorities said an attacker wounded three people after opening fire at several vehicles on a main route in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli military said the attacker fled the scene following Thursday’s shooting and that forces were conducting searches.

Magen David Adom of the Israeli rescue service said the injuries were moderate or light and that a 13-year-old was among the wounded.

Two-thirds of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are not functioning after Al Amal hospital in the south of the territory ceased operations amid intense military activity, UN humanitarian officials said.

According to the UN World Health Organisation, Gaza now has just 12 operating hospitals: two that are “minimally functional” and 10 that are partially functional, four in the north and six in the south.