Beirut - Israel carried out a deadly air raid Thursday in central Beirut after eight ground troops were killed near the Lebanese border, as it traded threats with Iran over possible future attacks.
The Israeli military kept up its bombardment of the Lebanese capital after Iran launched its largest missile attack yet on Israel.
As Israel weighs retaliation, President Joe Biden said the US was "fully supportive" of its ally but ruled out supporting a strike on Iran's nuclear sites.
Iran said it would step up its response if Israel counterattacked, defying calls for de-escalation in a war that has cost more than 1,000 lives in Lebanon. In Beirut, AFP journalists heard multiple explosions overnight and reported some buildings shaking.
One of the Israeli strikes hit a Hezbollah rescue facility, a source close to the group told AFP, killing at least six people, according to a Lebanese health ministry toll.
A total of 17 overnight air raids had hit Beirut by dawn on Thursday, Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) reported.
Israel, shifting its focus from the Gaza war, says it is trying to secure its border with Lebanon so tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by nearly a year of hostilities with Hezbollah can return home.
Israeli bombing of Lebanon has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
Israel reported the first death of a soldier in the Israel-Hezbollah war, a toll that later rose to eight dead.
Hezbollah said it had forced Israeli soldiers to retreat, targeted an Israeli unit with explosives, and destroyed three Merkava tanks with rockets as they advanced on Maroun al-Ras village.
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