The Israeli military has killed at least 47 people as it launched air strikes amid “intense fighting” in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health’s Emergency Health Operations Center said in a statement on Friday that Israeli air strikes since midnight had also wounded 97 other people.

Israel’s military earlier said it had struck targets throughout southern Lebanon overnight as its campaign continues despite the threat to the ceasefire deal between the United States and Iran. Tehran-backed Hezbollah reported intense fighting in the area.

Israel’s military said it had struck more than 150 Hezbollah targets and killed dozens of its members in response to what it described as ceasefire violations.

The army also reported that four Israeli soldiers, including a battalion commander, had been killed in the fighting.

The surge in hostilities has delayed planned “technical” talks in Switzerland between the US and Iran over their efforts to reach a permanent end to the war. Tehran reportedly refused to deploy its team due to Israel’s continued attacks on Lebanon.

Israel insists that it must continue its military operations, which includes air strikes and occupation of territory in the south, to fight Hezbollah, which has been launching attacks into northern Israel.

In response to the news that Hezbollah had killed four soldiers, far-right Israeli Minister of National Security Itmar Ben-Gvir wrote on social media: “All of Lebanon must burn.”

Similarly-minded Finance Minister Bezalel Stomach called for Israel to: “Open the gates of hell.”

‘On all fronts’

Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) had reported on Thursday that an Israeli drone attack hit a car near the town of Kfar Tebnit, killing two people, while at least one person was killed in a separate Israeli strike in Zabadin.

Hezbollah said it had repelled a four-day Israeli offensive aimed at advancing deeper into southern Lebanon. In a statement, the group said its fighters targeted Israeli troops and tanks with drones, rockets and artillery, preventing an advance towards Kfar Tebnit.

The strikes occurred as Israel faces pressure to halt its attacks on Lebanon and pull out all occupying forces as part of the US-Iran agreement to extend their ceasefire.

Trump said the US expected “a complete ceasefire on all fronts”, including between Israel and Hezbollah. “We encourage everyone in the Middle East region to maintain their commitment to allowing our negotiations to beautifully unfold,” he wrote on social media.

Israel’s military released a map on Thursday showing what it says are the current positions of its forces inside southern Lebanon, extending about 10km (6.2 miles) into Lebanese territory, along its “Yellow Line”, a framework similar to the Israeli military occupation measure in the besieged Gaza Strip.

This map not only extends into Lebanon’s land, but also its maritime territory, which would violate the Lebanon-Israel 2022 maritime agreement if Israel occupies it, according to maritime legal experts. This part of the sea also contains Lebanon’s Qana gas project, whose exploration rights were explicitly guaranteed to Lebanon under the 2022 US-brokered maritime border agreement with Israel.

Domestically, the Israeli prime minister is reportedly facing pressure from party members to take a harder line with the US over Lebanon. “Prime Minister Netanyahu needs to tell Trump ‘enough’,” Moshe Saada, a politician from Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, told Reuters.

“I am bound to defend Israelis, and withdrawing from Lebanon right now poses an existential threat to Israel. Duty demands that we strike Lebanon everywhere, around the clock, with maximum force and with no proportionality.”

Reporting from Beirut, Global News Insight’s Zeina Khodr said that over recent days, “there’s been a reduction in violence, in the sense that we are no longer seeing an intense Israel bombing campaign across southern Lebanon, but there have still been Israeli drone strikes over the past few days causing casualties”.

Khodr said that “Hezbollah feels very empowered by this deal [between the US and Iran], believing that Iran has given it leverage [to strike back at Israel].”

“Hezbollah has been responding to those strikes, sending a clear message that it is not going to accept a one-sided ceasefire. In fact, the Israeli army has acknowledged that one of its soldiers has been killed and others injured in two Hezbollah attacks in southern Lebanon,” Khodr said. “Hezbollah is telling the Lebanese government it’s not going to accept disarmament.”

Meanwhile, the US Treasury Department announced sanctions against several Lebanese officials it accused of aligning with Hezbollah and members of the sanctioned Alaa Hassan Hamieh business network.

Washington said the measures targeted individuals it accused of obstructing Lebanon’s peace process and delaying Hezbollah’s disarmament.

The Treasury Department also designated individuals and entities in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Oman that it said were raising funds and operating front companies on behalf of Hezbollah.

Israel’s war on Lebanon has killed at least 3,912 people, wounded 11,873 others and displaced more than one million people since March 2, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.