Beirut (Lebanon) (AFP) - Hezbollah said Saturday its fighters were confronting Israeli troops in Lebanon’s southern border region, where the Israeli military said it struck militants from the Iran-backed movement inside a mosque.

Rapidly escalating violence in recent days saw intense Israeli strikes on Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon as ground troops conducted raids near the border, transforming nearly a year of cross-border exchanges into full-blown war.

In the first reported Israeli air strike on the northern Tripoli region in the current flare-up, Palestinian militant group Hamas said “Zionist bombardment” of the Beddawi refugee camp killed a commander, Saeed Attallah Ali, as well as his wife and two daughters on Saturday.

The escalation, which this week included Iran’s second-ever missile attack on Israel, intensifying Hezbollah rocket fire and strikes claimed by Iran allies from as far away as Yemen, comes just days before the first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.

An Israeli military official told AFP the army was “preparing a response” to Iran’s “unlawful” attack, without elaborating.

In downtown Beirut, Ibrahim Nazzal, who is among hundreds of thousands displaced by the violence, said: “We want the war to stop… all our homes are gone.”

Nearly a year into the war in the Gaza Strip triggered by the unprecedented Hamas attack, Israel has shifted its focus north, aiming to allow tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by Hezbollah rocket fire to return home.

Israel’s military launched an intensified wave of strikes on Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon, killing more than 1,110 people since September 23.

On the ground, Hezbollah said its fighters were engaged in clashes with Israeli troops in the border area, later claiming a rocket attack at northern Israel’s Ramat David air base, some 45 kilometres (30 miles) from the frontier.

The Israeli military said its forces had killed 250 Hezbollah fighters in the border area this week, and early Saturday struck a militant “command centre located inside a mosque” in the town of Bint Jbeil.

- Peacekeepers ‘remain’ -

Israel’s recent attacks on Lebanon have killed an Iranian general, a host of Hezbollah commanders and, in the biggest blow to the group in decades, its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivering a rare public address on Friday, said that “the resistance in the region will not back down with these martyrdoms”.

As Israel mulls its response to the Iranian missile attack on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden cautioned against striking Iranian oil facilities, a day after he said Washington was “discussing” such action.

The Iranian attack, which Tehran called revenge for the assassination of Nasrallah and other top figures, killed one person in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. According to satellite pictures, it also caused some damage to Nevatim air base in southern Israel.

In Lebanon, Israeli bombardment has put at least four hospitals out of service, and on Friday, the first delivery of medical aid organised by the United Nations reached Beirut airport.

The state-run National News Agency said that about a dozen strikes hit the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs overnight, with a fresh raid on Saturday around noon (0900 GMT). It also reported more Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s south and east.

In Hezbollah’s south Beirut bastion, an AFP photographer saw some buildings reduced to rubble and fire raging in another.

In a nearby neighbourhood, 62-year-old cook Abu Abbas told AFP he has kept his small eatery open “every morning”.

“Even with the strikes that are becoming increasingly heavy each night… I cannot leave home,” he said.

Lebanon said an Israeli strike on Friday cut off the main international road to Syria, which was used by many seeking refuge across the border. Israel said it aimed to prevent the flow of weapons.

The United Nations said its peacekeepers “remain in all positions” in south Lebanon despite an Israeli request on Monday to “relocate” as the military’s ground incursions began.

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon also urged commitment “in actions, not just words” to Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah and stipulated that only the Lebanese army and peacekeepers should be deployed in south Lebanon.

- ‘Great force’ -

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, visiting Damascus on Saturday after a stop in Beirut, said: “The most important issue today is the ceasefire, especially in Lebanon and in Gaza.”

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose war-torn country has also endured Israeli attacks mostly targeting Iran-backed groups, told Araghchi that the Iranian missile attack was “a strong response” that had “taught the Zionist entity a lesson”.

Biden said the United States, Israel’s top military supplier, was working to “rally the rest of the world” to prevent the fighting from spreading even further.

US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators tried unsuccessfully for months to reach a Gaza truce and secure the release of 97 hostages still held in the Hamas-ruled territory.

Medics and rescuers said Israeli fire early Saturday killed at least 12 people across Gaza.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said a child was killed in “a missile attack” that hit a makeshift displacement camp near a central Gaza school, where the Israeli military said it targeted militants.

The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,825 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the territory’s health ministry and described as reliable by the UN.

In the first such order in weeks, the Israeli military told Palestinians to evacuate the area around the strategic Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, warning that troops were preparing to use “great force” against Hamas fighters there.

The war has already displaced the vast majority of the territory’s 2.4 million people at least once, with Gazans repeatedly warning there was no longer anywhere safe for them.

burs-ami/kir