CAIRO (Reuters) -Three Lebanese paramedics were killed and two others wounded, one critically, in an Israeli attack while they were extinguishing fires in the southern town of Faroun, Lebanon’s health ministry said on Saturday.

“Israeli forces targeted a team from the Lebanese Civil Defence as they responded to fires sparked by recent Israeli airstrikes,” a ministry statement said, specifying that the strike hit a fire truck.

It condemned the attack as a “blatant strike” on an official Lebanese state apparatus, marking the second such attack on an emergency team in less than 12 hours.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment.

Hezbollah issued a statement late on Saturday, saying they launched a “squadron of missiles” in response to the attack, targeting the headquarters of Israel’s 91st Division, which is responsible for its northern border, “hitting offices and soldiers with precision.”

The intensity of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel has ratcheted up steadily, displacing tens of thousands of people on either side of the Lebanese-Israeli frontier.

The conflict erupted after Hamas launched an attack on Israeli territory on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostages into the Gaza Strip. Since then, Hezbollah has been drawn into cross-border clashes in southern Lebanon.