Israel Strikes Across Lebanon After Ordering Evacuations of Southern Towns

Israel pressed on with its bombardment of Lebanon on Friday after issuing widespread evacuation warnings in the country’s south, as the conflict with Hezbollah militants showed no sign of abating despite a U.S.-led push for a cease-fire.

Some of the Israeli strikes, which came as Lebanon celebrated its independence day, hit near the southern port city of Tyre, following calls by the Israeli military for civilians to evacuate entire towns in the area and flee more than 20 miles north.

Bombings also targeted the Dahiya, the area near Beirut that is in effect controlled by Hezbollah and has been hit hard in recent days.

Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike on Friday killed two paramedics south of Tyre. More than 145 medical workers in Lebanon have been killed in the line of duty since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began last October, according to the U.N. World Health Organization.

Analysts say Israel’s ramped-up strikes across Lebanon are designed to pressure Hezbollah into agreeing to a cease-fire on terms that are favorable to Israel. Amos Hochstein, the Biden administration’s point man in the quest to end the war, discussed the terms of a possible deal with Israeli officials on Thursday during a visit to Israel.

U.S. and Israeli officials have provided few details in public about the terms of a deal. But an Israeli official said on Friday that there was “cautious optimism” in Israel about the prospect of finalizing the terms in the coming days. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

Mr. Hochstein earlier this week held two days of discussions with Lebanese officials in Beirut, which he said had made progress. Hezbollah’s leader, Naim Qassem, said that Hezbollah had responded to the U.S. proposal and that a truce depended on the “seriousness” of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

But Israel and Hezbollah have both pledged to keep fighting during the negotiations, and the violence appears only to have intensified.

Bachir Khodr, the head of the Baalbek-Hermel governorate in eastern Lebanon, said Israeli strikes had killed nearly 50 people in his province on Thursday. The attacks struck more than a dozen towns and villages, he said on social media, describing it as some of the most violent bombardment of the war.

At least 10 of those killed were from the village of Flaoui, Lebanon’s health ministry said. The state-run news agency reported that children were among the dead in that village.

Israel began an intensified military campaign against Hezbollah in September, nearly a year after the group began firing rockets into Israel in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza, which like Hezbollah is backed by Iran. The conflict has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and displaced almost a quarter of the population. It is now the bloodiest conflict inside Lebanon since the country’s 15-year civil war, which ended in 1990.

Here are other developments:

• Gaza hospital: The Israeli military struck Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza overnight, injuring six medical workers, destroying the hospital’s main generator and damaging water tanks, the Gaza Health Ministry said. The hospital, one of the last that is still functioning in the north of the territory, has been struck repeatedly during a weekslong Israeli offensive there, according to the health ministry and doctors who work there. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.