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.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and former Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat met Wednesday in Ain el-Tineh, as the region braced for further escalation following an Israeli incursion in south Lebanon and Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Israel.

Mikati called after the meeting for an immediate ceasefire, immediate implementation of Resolution 1701, the deployment of the Lebanese army south of Litani and coordination with UNIFIL.

The United Nations chief is demanding a halt to the escalation of “tit-for-tat violence” that he warned is leading people in the Middle East “straight over the cliff.”

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council Wednesday that in just a week the alarming situation in Lebanon has gone from bad “to much, much worse.”

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.

A dog clings to Hussein Hamza inside a car as he pans his camera around to show the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon.

"Poor thing. Look at this, he's clinging to me out of fear," Hamza says in the video he posted online. "A missile hit here," he said, his voice shaking.

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.

When Israel bombed buildings outside the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, Mohamed Arkadan and his team rushed to an emergency unlike anything they had ever seen.

About a dozen apartments had collapsed onto the hillside they once overlooked, burying more than 100 people. Even after 17 years with the civil defense forces of one of the world's most war-torn nations, Arkadan was shocked at the destruction. By Monday afternoon — about 24 hours after the bombing — his team had pulled more than 40 bodies, including children's, from the rubble, along with 60 survivors.

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".

Hezbollah said Wednesday it clashed with Israeli soldiers who tried to infiltrate into Lebanon, and also targeted Israeli troops across the border.

Hezbollah fighters confronted "an Israeli enemy infantry force that tried to infiltrate into the village of Adaysseh... and clashed with them... and forced them to withdraw", a statement said. Hezbollah fighters later clashed with troops who crossed into Maroun al-Ras, "inflicting casualties among them."

An Israeli strike Wednesday targeted Choueifat, south of Beirut, after a night of repeated strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs.

At least five Israeli strikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs early Wednesday, a Lebanese security source said.