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.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Wednesday said they "will not hesitate to support" regional allies in the conflict against Israel.

"The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ... will not hesitate to support the Islamic resistance decisively ... in bravely standing up against this fake regime (Israel)," the Guards said in a statement published by their official Sepah news agency.

French President Emmanuel Macron has held contacts with both caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Speaker Nabih Berri, as well as with the Iranian president and the Saudi crown prince, to push for a “solution” in Lebanon, regardless whether it starts with electing a president or a ceasefire, al-Jadeed TV said.

Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday called for more pressure on Israel's backers to end the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

"The president... demanded more pressure on the supporters of the Zionist regime (Israel) to stop the killings" in Gaza and Lebanon, Pezeshkian said during a phone call with Oman's Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, according to a presidency statement.