Tel Aviv/Beirut

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The Israeli military on Saturday (Sept 28) launched new strikes targeting Iran-aligned Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in eastern Lebanon. In a statement, the military said it was currently striking terror targets belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation in the area of Beqaa" in eastern Lebanon.

The military added that sirens sounded in northern Israel after Hezbollah said it struck there. Hezbollah claimed a rocket attack on northern Israel, the first retaliation after heavy Israeli strikes pounded Beirut's southern suburbs overnight.

"Defending Lebanon and its people, and responding to the barbaric" Israeli attacks "on cities and villages and civilians", Hezbollah fighters targeted kibbutz Kabri in northern Israel "with a salvo of Fadi-1 rockets", Hezbollah said in a statement, the news agency AFP reported.

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The pre-dawn strikes in Beirut's suburbs

A wave of Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs early on Saturday as Israel stepped up attacks on Hezbollah. According to a report by the news agency Reuters, more than 20 airstrikes hit the suburbs before dawn on Saturday.

These strikes come after Israel launched a massive strike on Hezbollah that apparently targeted its leader Hassan Nasrallah. There was no immediate confirmation of Nasrallah's fate after Friday's heavy strikes, but a source close to Hezbollah told Reuters he was not reachable.

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The Iran-aligned Lebanese militant group has not commented on Nasrallah yet.

Top Hezbollah commanders targeted

Israel has not said whether it tried to hit Nasrallah, but a senior Israeli official said top Hezbollah commanders were targeted. "I think it's too early to say... Sometimes they hide the fact when we succeed," the official told reporters when asked if the strike on Friday had killed Nasrallah.

Also read | Beirut rocked by multiple explosions as Israel targets Hezbollah's headquarters

Earlier, another source close to Hezbollah told Reuters that Nasrallah was alive. Iran's Tasnim news agency also reported he was safe. A senior Iranian security official told Reuters that Tehran was checking his status.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it had killed the commander of Hezbollah's missile unit, Muhammad Ali Ismail, and his deputy Hossein Ahmed Ismail.

Lebanese health authorities confirmed six dead and 91 wounded in the initial attack on Friday - the fourth on Beirut's Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs in a week and the heaviest since a 2006 war.

Also watch | Race to Power: Is the Israel-Hezbollah conflict helping Netanyahu politically?

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The toll appeared likely to rise much higher. More than 700 people were killed in strikes over the past week.

Iran accuses Israel of using US bombs in Beirut

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi accused Israel of using several US "bunker buster" bombs to strike Beirut on Friday.

"Just this morning, the Israeli regime used several 5,000-pound bunker busters that had been gifted to them by the United States to hit residential areas in Beirut," Foreign Minister Araqchi told a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting on the Middle East.

(With inputs from agencies)