Israel hits Gaza as top US diplomat seeks de-escalation

Israeli strikes hit south Gaza and across its border with Lebanon, the army said Monday ahead of a visit by the top U.S. diplomat who is seeking to avert a wider war.

Gaza's health ministry said 73 dead and 99 wounded had arrived at Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza's Deir al-Balah city over the previous 24 hours.

Three months into its battle with Gaza-based Hamas militants, Israel's army says its focus has moved from the northern Gaza Strip to "dismantling" militants in the centre and south of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory.

In the southern city of Khan Yunis, troops and warplanes overnight Sunday-Monday struck 30 militant targets which a military statement described as "significant". These included underground targets and weapons storage facilities, it said.

A drone also killed 10 militants "preparing to launch rockets toward Israeli territory", the statement added.

Also overnight, the military said it had hit "numerous Hezbollah targets" in Lebanon.

Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, a Hamas ally, have engaged in regular cross-border fire during the war that began an Oct. 7 with Hamas's unprecedented attack against Israel.

But a strike last week in a Beirut stronghold of Hezbollah has been a major factor contributing to rising fears of spreading conflict. A U.S. Defense Department official has told AFP that Israel carried out the strike that killed Hamas's deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri.

The Hamas attack which triggered the war resulted in about 1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

The militants, considered a "terrorist" group by the United States and European Union, also took around 250 hostages, 132 of whom remain captive, Israel says. At least 24 are believed to have been killed.

Israel has responded with relentless bombardment and a ground invasion that have killed at least 22,835 people, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.