Tensions ran high across West Asia as the damage from an Israeli airstrike in a densely populated part of Beirut became clearer on Saturday. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said that a second top commander was among those killed and the death toll rose significantly.

Lebanon’s health minister, Firas Abiad, said the number of people killed in the Friday strike had risen to at least 31, including three children and seven women. At least 68 more people were wounded, he said.

Hezbollah released a list of names of members who had been killed, including the leader of its elite Radwan force, Ahmed Wahbi. A day earlier, Hezbollah confirmed the death of the founder of the force, Ibrahim Aqeel, who had been overseeing its operations against Israel. He was long wanted by the US for his role in two bombing attacks in 1983 that killed more than 350 people at the US embassy in Beirut and the US Marine Corps barracks.

The airstrike was the latest in a string of apparent Israeli attacks against the Iran-backed group this week, operations that have yet again stoked the risk of escalation. The region is awaiting signs of how Hezbollah, Iran’s most important regional ally, might respond.

The strike levelled high-rise apartment buildings in a southern suburb of Beirut where the Lebanese militia holds sway. On Saturday, rescuers brought in more heavy vehicles in an effort to find those thought to be missing beneath the rubble.

Israel has been signalling for days that it planned to shift some of its military focus north towards Hezbollah in Lebanon and away from the war in Gaza.

Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire across the Lebanon-Israel border since the beginning of the war, and tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the intensifying exchange.

Lebanese troops cordoned off the area preventing people from reaching the building that was knocked down as members of the Lebanese Red Cross stood nearby to take any recovered body from under the rubble. On Saturday morning, Hezbollah’s media office took journalists on a tour of the scene of the airstrike where workers were still digging through the rubble.

The minister of public works and transport Ali Hamie told reporters at the scene that 23 people are still missing.

The airstrike on the crowded Qaim street knocked out an eight-storey building that had 16 apartments and damaged another one adjacent to it. The missiles destroyed the first building and cut through the basement of the second where the meeting of Hezbollah officials was being held, according to an Associated Press journalist at the scene.

In a nearby building, shops were badly damaged including one that sold clothes and had a sign in English that read: “DRESS LIKE YOU’RE ALREADY FAMOUS.”