UNESCO convened Wednesday an extraordinary meeting to strengthen the protection of cultural heritage in Lebanon, following the country’s request.

The meeting - an extraordinary session of the Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict – led to granting provisional enhanced protection to 39 cultural properties as well as the provision of an international financial assistance, totaling over 100,000 USD for emergency operations on the ground.

Iran’s supreme leader vowed Wednesday his nation will continue to support anti-Israeli forces in the Mideast.

The message from Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, like others since he was named Iran’s new supreme leader, came in a statement read on air by a state television anchor.

Paris, through its diplomatic channels and its Minister of Defense, has conveyed very serious warnings to Beirut about the deteriorating situation on the ground and its tendency towards further escalation, sources told the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper in remarks published Wednesday.

An Israeli strike in the Jnah area of Beirut early on Wednesday killed Hezbollah's top commander for Iraq military affairs, Youssef Hashem, a Lebanese security source and a Hezbollah source both told AFP.

The security source said "a senior Hezbollah official, who is the military chief for the Iraq file, named Youssef Hashem, was killed in the strike on the Jnah area in Beirut," adding that "he was in a meeting inside a tent near several vehicles".

The Foreign Ministers of Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, and the High Representative of the European Union, expressed Wednesday their full support to the Government and people of Lebanon, "who are once again suffering the dramatic consequences of a war that is not theirs."

"We express our condolences to the family of the victims and our solidarity to the civilian population impacted by this war both in Lebanon and Israel," the Delegation of the European Union to Lebanon said in a statement, condemning Hezbollah for attacks in support of Iran against Israel. The attacks "must cease immediately," the statement said. "The priority is to avoid a further escalation of the regional conflict with Iran."

Speaker Nabih Berri has revealed to his visitors that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had informed him, one day before the Lebanese Foreign Ministry’s decision to expel Iran's ambassador, that Tehran insists any agreement to end the war must also include Lebanon, affirming that “what applies to Tehran applies to Beirut.”

The Lebanese army said its forces have largely withdrawn from some border towns as Israeli troops continue to push a ground invasion into the country.

The military said in a statement that troops had to reposition to prevent being dispersed and cut off from support lines "as a result of the escalation of the Israeli aggression".

Beirut is bursting.

It's been a month since Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel after the U.S.-Israeli attack on its patron, Iran, triggering Israeli bombardment of Lebanon and a ground invasion. Since then, more than 1 million people from southern and eastern Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs have fled. Many have crammed into the ever-tighter spaces of the country's capital where the bombs have not yet fallen.

Israeli strikes in south Lebanon killed at least eight people on Tuesday, one of them a paramedic, according to the ministry of health.

In separate statements, the ministry said a strike in Tyre district killed three people and wounded 19 more, while another attack in Sidon district killed four. A third strike in Bint Jbeil district hit a gathering point for the Risala Scouts -- a rescue organization run by Hezbollah ally the Amal movement -- killing a paramedic and wounding 13 other people.

Lebanon denounced what it called Israel's plans for "a new occupation of Lebanese territory" on Tuesday, after Israel said it would establish a "security zone" in the country.

Defense Minister Major General Michel Menassa said the remarks by his counterpart Israel Katz were "no longer mere threats", but reflected "a clear intention to impose a new occupation of Lebanese territory, forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of citizens, and systematically destroy villages and towns in the south".