Israel and Hezbollah exchanged heavy fire into yesterday, with Israeli warplanes carrying out the most intense bombardment in almost a year of conflict across Lebanon's south and Hezbollah firing rockets deep into northern Israel.

The Israeli military said it struck around 290 targets on Saturday night, including thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels, and said it would continue to hit more targets.

Israel closed schools and restricted gatherings in many northern areas and ordered hospitals there to transfer their operations to facilities with extra protection from rocket and missile fire.

• Israel forces hit 290 targets, destroy rocket launchers
• Hezbollah targets airbase with dozens of missiles
• Gaza death toll rises to 41,431

Lebanon's health ministry said yesterday three people were killed in separate Israeli strikes on south Lebanon.

The UN special coordinator in Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasscharet, said in a post on X that "with the region on the brink of an imminent catastrophe, it cannot be overstated enough: there is NO military solution that will make either side safer".

The conflict - which sharply escalated over the past week - has raged since Hezbollah opened a second front against Israel after Israeli offensive in Gaza began on October 7.

In Gaza, civil defence rescuers said an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in the Al-Shati refugee camp yesterday killed at least 7 people, with the Israeli military saying it had targeted Hamas members.

Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said hundreds of displaced Gazans were sheltering there, reports AFP.

The health ministry in Gaza said yesterday that at least 41,431 people have been killed since the offensive began in October, now in its 12th month. The toll includes 40 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry.

Sirens sounded across Israel all night as multiple rockets and missiles were fired from Lebanon and Iraq, most of which were intercepted by Israeli aerial defence systems, the military said.

Several buildings were struck, including a house badly damaged near the Israeli city of Haifa. Rescue teams treated wounded but there were no reports of deaths. Residents had been instructed to stay near bomb shelters and safe rooms.

Hezbollah said it targeted the Israeli Ramat David Airbase with successive barrages of missiles, in the deepest strikes it has claimed since hostilities began, reports Reuters.

An official in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a grouping of Iran-backed armed factions, said they launched cruise missile and explosive drone attacks at Israel at dawn yesterday as part of "a new phase in our support front" with Lebanon.

The move will stoke fears the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon could spiral into the rest of the region.

The escalating attacks come less than 48 hours after an Israeli airstrike targeting Hezbollah commanders in a suburb of the Lebanese capital. The death toll from that strike had risen to 45, the Lebanese health ministry said yesterday.