The son-in-law of Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah - who was killed last week in a massive Israeli strike in south Beirut - was killed in an Israeli raid in Damascus Wednesday, an NGO said.

"Hassan Jaafar Qassir, the son-in-law of Hassan Nasrallah, was among two Lebanese victims of the Israeli raid which targeted an apartment in a residential building in the Mazze district of Damascus," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a claim a source close to Hezbollah confirmed to AFP.

Hezbollah said it fought off a bid by the Israeli army to advance at a border point in southern Lebanon on Thursday.

Hezbollah "repelled with artillery fire an attempt by enemy Israeli forces to advance at Fatima's Gate", it said, a day after Israel said eight of its soldiers had been killed in south Lebanon.

Nine people were killed in an Israeli air raid on a Hezbollah rescue facility in the heart of Beirut late Wednesday, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

The airstrike in the residential Bashoura district targeted an apartment in a multi-story building that houses an office of the Islamic Health Organization, a group of civilian first responders affiliated to Hezbollah.

An Israeli air strike killed two people in Damascus Wednesday, a monitor said, in the second strike in two days on a neighborhood that is home to security headquarters and embassies.

"An Israeli air strike targeted a residential building in the Mazzeh neighborhood frequented by Hezbollah leaders and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards," killing at least two people whose identity was not immediately clear, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

World leaders called on Iran and Israel to step back from the brink after Tehran fired a barrage of rockets at its arch-rival.

Tehran said Tuesday's attack -- launched as Israel said it was mounting a ground offensive against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon -- was in response to the killings of Iran-backed militant leaders.

The Lebanese army said an Israeli drone wounded one of its soldiers Wednesday in an attack when the unit was working in the country's south.

"A soldier was wounded due to an attack by an Israeli enemy drone as an army unit was working to open the Marjayoun-Hasbaya road," the Lebanese army said on X.

Police in Denmark and Sweden said on Wednesday they were probing attacks at or near Israeli embassies in their capitals.

Copenhagen police arrested three people in relation to two blasts early Wednesday near the Israeli embassy in the Danish capital.

Israel on Wednesday declared U.N. chief Antonio Guterres "persona non grata", banning him from entering the country for failing to condemn Iran's missile attack on Israel.

"Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran's heinous attack on Israel does not deserve to step foot on Israeli soil. This is an anti-Israel Secretary-General who lends support to terrorists, rapists, and murderers," said Foreign Minister Israel Katz in a statement.

The Biden administration says there is a significant difference between Israeli actions that have expanded its war against the Iranian-backed militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran's retaliatory missile attack against Israel, which it condemned as escalatory.

In carefully calibrated remarks, officials across the administration are defending the surge in attacks by Israel against Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon, while still pressing for peace and vowing retribution after Iran fired about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday condemned "in the strongest possible terms" Iran's attacks against Israel, adding that France had "mobilized" its military resources in the Middle East to counter Tehran.

Macron also demanded that "Hezbollah cease its terrorist actions against Israel and its population", and asked Israel to "put an end to their military operations as soon as possible", the Elysee Palace said in a statement, adding France would "shortly be organizing a conference in support of the Lebanese people and its institutions".