Jerusalem (AFP) - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday “now is the time” to end the Gaza war, and urged Israel to avoid further escalation with Iran.

Israel is fighting Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon and has vowed to retaliate against Iran for an October 1 missile attack.

In southern Lebanon, Israeli strikes pounded Tyre, leaving swathes of its centre in ruins and sparking a new exodus from the once vibrant coastal city.

“The whole city shook,” said resident Rana, who fled to the seafront after the Israeli military issued an evacuation warning.

Bilal Kashmar of Tyre’s disaster management unit said seven buildings were levelled and more than 400 apartments damaged.

“You could say that the entire city of Tyre is being evacuated,” he told AFP.

Black smoke was seen rising from several neighbourhoods, with some areas just 500 metres (yards) from the city’s ancient ruins.

UNESCO said it was “closely following” the conflict’s impact on Tyre’s World Heritage site.

On Wednesday evening, Lebanese state media reported an Israeli drone strike on an apartment in the Jnah neighbourhood of south Beirut, while raids targeting the nearby suburbs of Ouzai and Haret Hreik.

Israel’s army then issued a new evacuation call for south Beirut.

Blinken’s visit to the region, is 11th since the Gaza war began, comes amid continued US efforts to end the war and limit its regional fallout.

- ‘Do not create greater escalation’ -

The Gaza war began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed 42,792 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry which the UN considers reliable.

Blinken said Israel had “achieved most of its strategic objectives” in Gaza and should now aim for lasting success.

“Now is the time to turn those successes into enduring, strategic success,” he said after meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials.

Addressing Israel’s pledge to retaliate for Iran’s October 1 attack, he said: “It’s also very important that Israel respond in ways that do not create greater escalation.”

After Israel, Blinken visited Saudi Arabia, renewing his bid to broker a normalisation of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

Speaking at a summit in Russia, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian urged BRICS nations to help “end the war” in Gaza and Lebanon.

A Hamas official said a delegation led by a top official in the movement arrived in Moscow for talks.

- ‘We are freezing’ -

Concerns are mounting over tens of thousands of civilians trapped by fighting in Gaza’s aid-starved north, where Israel launched a major air and ground assault this month.

Blinken acknowledged “progress” on aid for Gaza but said more needed to be done.

With winter approaching, displaced Gazans fear the cold.

Ahmad al-Razz said he sewed sacks together to make his tent on the beach near Deir el-Balah.

“We are freezing every night because we are right by the sea, and we have no blankets or coverings to keep us warm,” said the 42-year-old.

The World Health Organization said it was forced to postpone the last phase of a polio vaccination drive in Gaza due to “intense bombardment” in the north.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said another of its workers had been killed in Gaza, after a strike hit an UNRWA vehicle.

An AFP photographer reported a strike in the southern city of Khan Yunis, leaving a mangled aid truck and mourners gathered around two bodies.

- Netanyahu says Hezbollah plotted ‘invasion’ -

After nearly a year of war with Hamas in Gaza, Israel shifted its focus to Lebanon last month, vowing to secure its northern border under fire from Hezbollah.

Israel has since ramped up its strikes on Hezbollah strongholds and sent in ground forces, in a war that has killed at least 1,552 people since September 23, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures.

Lebanese media said Israeli strikes hit areas of south and east Lebanon on Wednesday.

In the evening, pro-Iran broadcaster Al-Mayadeen said an Israeli strike hit an office it had vacated in Beirut.

Hezbollah said it had fired rockets in several areas of Israel, including a salvo that forced Israeli troops to “retreat behind the frontier” after they attempted to infiltrate from the outskirts of the south Lebanon village of Aitarun.

The Israeli army said air raid sirens sounded across central Israel after “projectiles” were fired from across the Lebanese border.

Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel had uncovered that Hezbollah had been plotting an “attack even greater than on October 7” involving jeeps, missiles and underground tunnels.

“They were planning an invasion,” the premier told French broadcasters CNews and Europe 1.

Also on Wednesday, Hezbollah confirmed the death of Hashem Safieddine, a cleric tipped to succeed the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, a day after the Israeli army announced his death.

A Western diplomat meanwhile told AFP a number of Western countries had floated the idea of deploying international forces to Lebanon in the event of a ceasefire.

About 10,000 UN peacekeepers are already deployed in Lebanon’s south, but the diplomat said a separate multi-national troop deployment was under consideration.