In the southern border region of Lebanon, where the Israeli military claimed to have targeted militants from the Iran-backed movement inside a mosque, Hezbollah announced on Saturday that its members were engaged in combat with Israeli troops.

Recent days have seen a sharp increase in bloodshed as ground forces have raided areas close to the border and Israel has launched heavy strikes on Hezbollah strongholds throughout Lebanon, turning what had been close to a year of cross-border clashes into a full-fledged war.

Hamas, the militant Palestinian group, said that a leader named Saeed Attallah Ali, along with his wife and two daughters, were killed on Saturday by “Zionist bombardment” of the Beddawi refugee camp. This was the first known Israeli air strike on the northern Tripoli region during the current flare-up.

Days before the first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, there has been an increase in Hezbollah rocket fire, Iran’s second-ever missile attack on Israel, and strikes claimed by Iran’s supporters from as far away as Yemen.

Without providing further details, an Israeli military official said AFP that the army was “preparing a response” to Iran’s “unlawful” attack.

Ibrahim Nazzal, one of the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the violence, declared in downtown Beirut: “We want the conflict to cease… Our houses are all gone.

Israel has turned its attention northward in an attempt to facilitate the return of tens of thousands of Israelis who were forced from their homes by Hezbollah missile fire, over a year after the war in the Gaza Strip was started by the extraordinary Hamas attack.

Over 1,110 people have died as a result of Israel’s military’s increased bombing of Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon since September 23.

Hezbollah announced that its forces were fighting Israeli troops in the border region from the ground, and subsequently claimed credit for a missile attack at the Ramat David air base in northern Israel, which is around 45 kilometres (30 miles) from the border.

A terrorist “command centre located inside a mosque” was targeted early on Saturday in the village of Bint Jbeil, according to the Israeli military, which also reported that 250 Hezbollah fighters had been killed in the border area this week.

In the most devastating blow to Hezbollah in decades, Israel’s recent attacks on Lebanon have claimed the lives of several commanders, an Iranian general, and the organization’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

In a rare public speech on Friday, Iran’s top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared that “the resistance in the region will not back down with these martyrdoms.”

US President Joe Biden issued a warning against attacking Iranian oil facilities on Tuesday, the day after stating that Washington was “discussing” taking such action, as Israel considers how to respond to the Iranian missile attack.

One person was killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank by the Iranian attack, which Tehran said as retaliation for the killing of Nasrallah and other prominent leaders. Photos taken from satellites appear to show that it also damaged the southern Israeli air base, Nevatim.

At least four hospitals in Lebanon have been rendered inoperable by Israeli bombardment, and the first UN-organized medical relief delivery arrived at Beirut airport on Friday.

About a dozen attacks occurred overnight in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, according to the state-run National News Agency. A further raid is scheduled for this Saturday at noon (0900 GMT). More Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s east and south were also reported.

An AFP photographer witnessed fire raging in one structure and some buildings left to rubble in Hezbollah’s bastion in south Beirut.

Abu Abbas, a 62-year-old cook in an adjacent suburb, told AFP that he has kept his little restaurant open “every morning.”