Israeli jets struck the southern suburbs of Beirut early Wednesday for the first time in six days, Lebanese state media reported. The casualty count was not yet clear.
The attack comes just one day after caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the United States government gave him some assurances of Israel easing its strikes in the Lebanese capital.
Israel says it is striking Hezbollah assets in the suburbs, where the armed group has a strong presence, but it is also a busy residential and commercial area. The Israeli military said the Wednesday strike hit a weapons warehouse under a residential building.
The Israeli military posted an evacuation warning on the X platform saying it is targeting a building in the Haret Hreik neighborhood. An Associated Press photographer who witnessed the strikes said there were three in the area. The first strike was documented less than an hour after the notice.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8 in solidarity with the Palestinian armed group Hamas, following their surprise attack on southern Israel. A year of low-level fighting escalated into all-out war last month, and has displaced some 1.2 million people in Lebanon.
On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US had expressed its concerns to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's administration on the recent strikes.
"When it comes to the scope and nature of the bombing campaign that we saw in Beirut over the past few weeks, it's something that we made clear to the government of Israel we had concerns with and we were opposed to," he told reporters, adopting a harsher tone than Washington has taken so far.
The last time Beirut was hit was on Oct. 10, when two strikes near the city center killed 22 people and brought down entire buildings in a densely populated neighborhood.
Lebanese security sources said at the time that Hezbollah official Wafiq Safa was the target but that he had survived. There was no comment from Israel.
Elsewhere, Israeli strikes late Tuesday in the southern town of Qana killed at least 15 people, according to Lebanon's Civil Defense. Nuhad Bustanji, a spokesperson for the first responders, said rescue efforts were still underway and the toll could rise.
Videos shared on social media showed the smoking ruins of a building targeted in the strike with surrounding structures damaged as well. Local media said there were several strikes in the southern town Tuesday night.
Qana was the site of an Israeli artillery strike on a United Nations compound that killed dozens of civilians in 1996.
Israeli military evacuation orders were also affecting more than a quarter of Lebanon, according to the UN refugee agency, two weeks after Israel began incursions into the south of the country that it says are aimed at pushing back Hezbollah.
Some Western countries have been pushing for a ceasefire between the two neighbors, as well as in Gaza, though the United States says it continues to support Israel and was sending an anti-missile system and troops.
PAIN AND CEASEFIRE
With diplomatic efforts stalled, the fighting continues.
The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had captured three members of Hezbollah's elite Radwan forces and they had been moved to Israel for investigation. Hezbollah has not commented.
Its deputy chief Naim Qassem said earlier on Tuesday the Iran-backed group would inflict "pain" on Israel but he also called for a ceasefire.
"After the ceasefire, according to an indirect agreement, the settlers would return to the north and other steps will be drawn up," Qassem said in a recorded speech.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which says its operation in Lebanon aims to secure the return of tens of thousands of residents forced to flee their homes in northern Israel because of Hezbollah attacks.
Israeli strikes have killed at least 2,350 people over the last year and left nearly 11,000 wounded, according to the Lebanese health ministry, and more than 1.2 million people have been displaced.
The toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but includes hundreds of women and children.
The figures underscore the heavy price Lebanese are paying as Israel tries to destroy the Iran-backed armed group's infrastructure in their conflict, which resumed a year ago when it began firing rockets at Israel in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war.
