U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon have said Israeli army forces fired at one of their positions in south Lebanon in a "direct and apparently deliberate" attack that damaged a watchtower.

Peacekeepers in the southern village of Kfarkila observed an Israeli army tank "firing at their watchtower", UNIFIL said Wednesday, adding that "two cameras were destroyed, and the tower was damaged" in what the force called "direct and apparently deliberate fire on a UNIFIL position".

Hezbollah said Thursday it has destroyed two Israeli tanks near the Lebanese border with "guided missiles", after close combat with Israeli troops staging incursions in the area.

The group targeted two Merkava tanks in Labbouneh near the coastal border town of al-Naqoura, as attacks escalated after Israel intensified bombing of the country last month. The attacks burned the tanks and caused casualties, Hezbollah said.

Israel's army raided Thursday the towns of Tamnnine, Saraaine and Sefri in the Bekaa region.

Military spokesman Avichay Adraee had ordered residents of the Bekaa towns to leave, warning that the area would again be targeted by Israeli forces.

The Lebanese Red Cross said two paramedics were wounded in an Israeli strike on Wednesday that hit a south Lebanon village while on a rescue mission coordinated with U.N. peacekeepers.

Two rescuers in the village of Jwaya sustained "light injuries", said a statement posted on social media, adding that the volunteers were dispatched after "coordination with UNIFIL", the U.N. peacekeeping mission, to search for casualties in an earlier Israeli strike on the same area.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has deployed a team of surgeons to treat war-related wounds at the government-run Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut.

Many of the patients have been evacuated from hospitals in the south as Israeli strikes intensify there. About 1.2 million people have fled southern and eastern Lebanon.

Israeli warplanes struck a two-story building in Yammouneh, in the Bekaa Valley, killing two people, according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency.

The victims in the strike Wednesday afternoon were a local woman and a displaced person, the report said.

The U.S. has sanctioned three people and four firms involved in a Lebanon-based sanctions evasion network accused of generating millions in revenue for the militant group Hezbollah.

Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also imposed sanctions on three people involved in trafficking of Captagon, an amphetamine, from Lebanon into Jordan.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that the activities of U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, near the border, are of "great importance" and that the force could play a vital role when the war with Hezbollah ends.

"Israel places great importance on the activities of UNIFIL and has no intention of harming the organization or its personnel," said Katz in a statement posted on X, adding: "Israel views UNIFIL as playing an important role in the 'day after' following the war against Hezbollah".

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that any negotiations to end fighting in Lebanon must be conducted “under fire,” during a situational assessment on the northern front.

Meeting with commanders of the reservist 146th Division, Gallant said the recent capture of Hezbollah operatives in southern Lebanon proves the Israeli army's "success and Hezbollah's predicament," according to a Defense Ministry statement.

By Jasmin Lilian Diab, Lebanese American University

The escalation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah since September 2024, and Israel's bombing of civilian areas across Lebanon, have unleashed a profound humanitarian disaster.