Israeli strikes kill nine in Lebanon as Hezbollah fires rockets over border

Israeli 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 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 the capital, 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.