At least eight killed in Israeli drone strikes on highway south of Beirut | Israel attacks Lebanon News

There were three attacks on cars on the highway in Jiyeh and two children were among the dead, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.

Three Israeli drone attacks on cars on a major highway linking Beirut to southern Lebanon have killed at least eight people, including two children, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.

A photograph of the bombed cars shared by Lebanon’s National News Agency following Wednesday’s attacks in the Jiyeh area, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the Lebanese capital, showed the vehicles badly damaged, with their exteriors charred and mangled.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Tire in southern Lebanon, said “the conflict is only escalating.”

“It is a conflict that is taking a heavy toll on civilians living in these areas,” he said.

Lebanon and Israel are expected to hold a new round of direct negotiations in Washington on Thursday, mediated by the United States.

Hezbollah, which has been launching attacks on northern Israel and on Israeli troops who have entered and occupied a section of southern Lebanon, says it opposes negotiations in the United States.

On Wednesday morning, the Israeli military issued forced displacement orders for residents of Meiss el-Jabal, Yanouh, Burj Shemali, Hula, Debl and Aabbasiyyeh, warning that it will soon act “strongly” against these six southern Lebanese villages.

Anyone who stays “endangers their lives,” the military said, warning residents to move at least 1,000 meters (0.6 miles) away to “open areas.”

After this new round of forced displacement orders – which have been happening almost daily for the past week – Al Jazeera’s Khodr said one of the few remaining hospitals in the area was in the displacement zone.

“There are only three left in the entire Tire district, and there are still people living here. At least 100,000 people still live here,” he said.

“These hospitals are really a lifeline for these people, but some of them, the injured, don’t make it because the road is a long journey to get to these hospitals and people are still in the villages further south.”

On Tuesday, 13 people were killed in attacks on southern cities, including two Lebanese Civil Defense paramedics, Hussein Jaber and Ahmad Noura, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.

The ministry reported that at least 380 people were killed during the stunt, bringing the total death toll since the Israeli invasion and bombing began on March 2 to more than 2,800.

He also said on Monday that 108 health and emergency medical services workers had been killed in Lebanon during the war, and more than 140 Israeli attacks on ambulances and medical facilities had been recorded.

“All of this is having a huge impact here in the communities of southern Lebanon,” Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto said from Tyre. “And there is a growing humanitarian crisis, with more than a million people displaced.”