Lebanon said Israel struck central Beirut early Wednesday without warning, killing at least twelve people, as the Israeli military announced it was targeting the country's south.

Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) said two strikes in the early hours of Wednesday hit an apartment in the central Zoqaq al-Blat neighborhood, a densely populated area close to the government's headquarters and several embassies.

Israel said late Tuesday it had struck sites "throughout Lebanon," targeting what it called Hezbollah rocket launching infrastructure after a series of air raid sirens in northern Israel.

Iran's Supreme National Security Council on Tuesday confirmed the death of its chief Ali Larijani, after Israel said it had killed him in an air strike.

U.S. President Donald Trump, whose call for assistance from allies to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic has largely been rebuffed, said Tuesday that U.S. forces "no longer need" military help in the Iran war.

"Because of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer 'need,' or desire, the NATO Countries' assistance -- WE NEVER DID! Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea," Trump posted on his Truth Social network, adding: "WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!"

Falling debris from missile interceptions killed one person on Tuesday in the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi and injured two medical staff in Kuwait, authorities said, as Iran pressed its attacks against Gulf countries.

Iran's football federation is "negotiating" with FIFA to relocate the country's first-round matches at the World Cup to Mexico from the United States, citing the conflict in the Middle East, Iran's football federation said.

Cuba scrambled Tuesday to restore power after a nationwide blackout that hit the communist-run island just as U.S. President Donald Trump proclaimed he will "take" it over.

Threats from Israeli officials to unleash Gaza-level destruction on Lebanon are "wholly unacceptable", the U.N. said Tuesday, and warned that "deliberately attacking civilians or civilian objects amounts to a war crime".

Israel has stepped up strikes and deployed ground troops to its northern neighbor since March 2, when Lebanon was dragged into the Middle East war after Tehran ally Hezbollah attacked Israel with rockets in retaliation for the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Youssef Assaf was in a Lebanese Red Cross ambulance when it was targeted by an Israeli strike near Tyre, in southern Lebanon. The 35-year-old paramedic died of his wounds two days later.

"I was called around 10:30 pm and told that he was wounded and in the hospital," his wife, Jeanne d'Arc Boutros, told AFP from northern Lebanon, where she had fled to a relative's home.

Lebanon transferred more than 130 Syrian detainees to their home country on Tuesday, a Lebanese judicial official told AFP, as part of an agreement the two sides signed in February.

Overcrowded Lebanese prisons host more than 2,200 Syrians held on various charges.