Israeli airstrikes on Saturday killed at least 15 people and injured dozens in central Beirut, officials said, as diplomats scrambled to broker a ceasefire.

Lebanon’s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency responders dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, it said, adding that 63 people were wounded. The strikes were the fourth in the Lebanese capital in less than a week.

The escalation comes after US envoy Amos Hochstein travelled to the region this week in an attempt to broker a ceasefire deal to end the more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which has erupted into full-on war in the past two months.

Israeli bombardment has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000, according to the Lebanese health ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population. On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by rockets, drones and missiles in northern Israel and in fighting in Lebanon.

The strikes at 4 am (local time) destroyed an eight-storey building and left a crater in the ground. Also on Saturday, a drone strike killed one person and injured another in the southern port city of Tyre, according to the state-run National News Agency.

The agency said the victims were fishermen. An Associated Press journalist, who saw the strike from a nearby hotel overlooking the beach, said he had watched the fishermen set up nets beforehand and both appeared to be young teenagers.

Israel’s military did not issue a warning for residents prior to the strikes in central Beirut and did not comment on the casualties. It warned residents Saturday in parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs that they were residing near Hezbollah facilities, which the army would target in the near future. The warning, posted on X, told people to evacuate at least 500 metres away.

The army said that over the past day it had conducted intelligence-based strikes on Hezbollah targets in Dahiyeh, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. It said it hit several command centers and weapons storage facilities.

Kids killed in Gaza

Strikes also continued in Gaza on Saturday. At least six people, half of them children and including two women, were killed in the southern city of Khan Younis, according to AP reporters and staff at Nasser Hospital.

The death toll from the 13-month-long war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas has surpassed 44,000 this week, according to local health officials. The Gaza health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

AP