Lebanon is reeling after the deadliest day of renewed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. The death toll has exceeded 300 as more bodies are found. Israel has authorized direct talks with Lebanon despite no diplomatic ties. The Health Ministry on Thursday reported 1,150 wounded in strikes that rocked Lebanon on Wednesday including busy parts of Beirut. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that talks would focus on disarming Hezbollah. Israel's military targeted Hezbollah sites. But strikes hit densely packed areas that led to civilian casualties. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun called the attacks "barbaric." The conflict has displaced more than a million people.

Palestinian medical officials say Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 46 people in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, including 11 at a makeshift cafeteria in an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone. In Lebanon, warplanes struck Beirut's southern suburbs and killed 18 people elsewhere in the country on Tuesday. The latest bombardment came as the United States said it would not reduce its military support for Israel after a deadline passed for allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza. The State Department cited some progress, even as international aid groups said Israel had failed to meet the U.S. demands.

Israel launched waves of deadly airstrikes across Lebanon and Gaza that killed at least 24 people in Lebanon's northeast. That's according to the state-run National News Agency. Friday's strikes transformed once-bustling neighborhood blocks in Beirut into smoldering ruins. Meanwhile in central Gaza, Palestinian hospital officials recovered the bodies of 25 people killed in a barrage of Israeli attacks that began Thursday. Israel said it targeted Hamas infrastructure near the Nuseirat refugee camp. The latest violence comes against the backdrop of the Biden administration's renewed diplomatic push for cease-fires in Gaza and Lebanon, days before the U.S. election.

Israel has carried out a series of punishing airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Strikes have also cut off the main border crossing between Lebanon and Syria for tens of thousands of people fleeing Israeli bombardment. The overnight blasts in Beirut's southern suburbs sent huge plumes of smoke and flames into the night sky and shook buildings kilometers away in the Lebanese capital. Thursday's strike along the Lebanon-Syria border, about 50 kilometers or 30 miles east of Beirut, led to the closure of the road near the busy Masnaa Border Crossing. Israel said it had targeted the crossing because it was being used by Hezbollah to transport military equipment across the border.

In Beirut, shops are open and traffic is as snarled as ever. In Tel Aviv, cafes hum with patrons and umbrellas sprout across crowded beaches. Such scenes may seem surreal in a region teetering on the edge of all-out war — and beneath the surface there is plenty of fear and anxiety. But after 10 months of near-daily border skirmishes, strikes further afield and escalating threats, a sense of fatalism seems to have set in. The killings last week of two militant leaders in Beirut and Tehran — attributed to Israel — brought vows of revenge from Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah. Everyone expects that an all-out war would be far more devastating than any previous conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.