Hezbollah's deputy leader Naim Qassem, in his first public address since Israel assassinated the group's chief Hassan Nasrallah last week, said yesterday the movement is ready to confront any Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon.

Israel will not achieve its goals, he said. "We will face any possibility and we are ready if the Israelis decide to enter by land and the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement," he said.

• Hezbollah continues to fire rockets at Israeli targets
• 105 more Lebanese killed in Israeli strikes in 24 hrs
• Ready to deploy army in the south of Litani: Lebanese PM

Qassem also said Hezbollah's fighters had continued to fire rockets as deep as 150 kilometres into Israeli territory.

In other developments, the Palestinian group Hamas said an Israeli airstrike killed its leader in Lebanon in the city of Tyre, and another Palestinian organisation said three of its leaders died in a strike in central Beirut - the first such hit inside the capital's limits.

The killings were the latest in a wave of intensified Israeli attacks on militant targets in Lebanon, part of a conflict also stretching from the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, to Yemen, and within Israel itself.

Hamas said its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin was killed along with his wife, son and daughter, in a strike that targeted their house in a refugee camp in the southern city of Tyre in the early hours of yesterday.

Another group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), said three of its leaders were killed in a strike that targeted Beirut's Kola district.

The latest attacks indicated Israel has no intention of slowing down its offensive on multiple fronts even after eliminating Nasrallah, who was Iran's most powerful ally in its "Axis of Resistance" against Israeli and US influence in the region.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday warned in comments directed at Iran that there was nowhere in the Middle East beyond Israel's reach.

In Lebanon, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said, "We are ready to deploy the army south of the Litany." Earlier in the day, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant appeared to hint at a possible ground operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Lebanon's health ministry said more than 1,000 Lebanese have been killed and 6,000 wounded in the past two weeks, without specifying how many were civilians. In 24-hours, Israeli strikes killed 105 people in Lebanon, it added.

The United States, Israel's close ally, has urged a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in Lebanon but has also authorised its military to reinforce in the region.

US President Joe Biden, asked if an all-out war in the Middle East could be avoided, said: "It has to be."