Hezbollah says Israeli strikes kill 3 fighters as U.S. envoy tries to calm tensions

Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed three Hezbollah fighters on Wednesday, the militant group said, as a U.S. envoy tasked with avoiding a devastating regional war returned to Israel after meeting officials in Lebanon.

Lebanese state media reported multiple Israeli strikes along the border and in an area north of the coastal city of Tyre, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the frontier. The Israeli military said two Hezbollah launches damaged several vehicles in northern Israel.

Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden, was back in Israel after meetings in Lebanon on Tuesday. There has been no word on whether he has made progress in his efforts to avoid a wider war.

With the Israeli offensive in Gaza now in its ninth month, international criticism has grown steadily over the U.S. support for Israel’s air and ground attacks. The top United Nations court has concluded there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas, saying militants operate among the population.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Tuesday that the United States was withholding weapons needed for the war in Gaza. Biden has delayed delivering certain heavy bombs to Israel since May over concerns about killing civilians in Gaza. However, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that those 2,000-pound bombs are the only weapons under review. He told reporters that “Everything else is moving as it normally would.”

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 37,100 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The war has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and other supplies to Palestinians who are facing widespread hunger.

Israel launched the war after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250.