Israel's military said it had killed three Hezbollah commanders and some 70 fighters in southern Lebanon in the past 48 hours, a day after confirming it had killed Hashem Safieddine, the militant group's heir apparent leader.

"In southern Lebanon, IDF troops continue conducting limited, localized, targeted raids against Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure and operatives," the Israel Defense Force (IDF) said in a statement.

"Over the past day, the troops eliminated approximately 70 terrorists in ground and aerial strikes," it said.

Israel expanded its evacuation warnings to several central neighborhoods in the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre on Wednesday, ordering people to evacuate north out of the city, Reuters reported.

Israel has been carrying out an escalating offensive in Lebanon after a year of border clashes with Hezbollah, the most formidably armed of Iran's proxy forces across the Middle East.

Israel's offensive has driven at least 1.2 million Lebanese from their homes and killed 2,530 people, including at least 63 over the past 24 hours, the Lebanese government said on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the IDF said it had confirmed the killing of Hashem Safieddine, the heir apparent to its leader Hassan Nasrallah who was killed in an Israeli attack last month.

The military said Safieddine was killed in a strike carried out three weeks ago in Beirut's southern suburbs, its first confirmation of his death. Earlier this month, Israel said he had probably been eliminated.

There was no immediate response from Hezbollah to Israel's statement that it had killed Safieddine.

Israel has so far shown no sign of relenting in its Gaza and Lebanon campaigns even after assassinating several leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah.

The United States issued fresh charges over the attempted Tehran plot to kidnap and assassinate an Iranian-American journalist in New York, indicting an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) official among others in the case, according to a court document on Tuesday.

U.S. prosecutors have previously charged other suspects in the case, including one man in 2022 and two more in January 2023. Tuesday's filing did not name the alleged victim, but one of the previously charged suspects in the case was arrested for having a rifle outside the Brooklyn home of journalist and activist Masih Alinejad, Reuters reported.

"Today’s indictment exposes the full extent of Iran’s plot to silence an American journalist for criticizing the Iranian regime,” said U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray

The IRGC official, Ruhollah Bazghandi, was a brigadier general who previously served as chief of the corps' counterintelligence department, according to an indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn.

Bazghandi was previously sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department. Prosecutors said that Bazghandi's internet activity, as well as that of three other individuals whose names were unsealed on Tuesday, pointed to their involvement in multiple assassination plots, read the report.

Bazghandi and the other newly charged defendants are based in Iran and remain at large, prosecutors said. The man arrested outside Alinejad's home, Khalid Mehdiyev, and another man allegedly involved in the plot, Rafat Amirov, are in U.S. custody and have pleaded not guilty to murder-for-hire charges.

Prosecutors have said that the defendants had plotted to lure Alinejad out of her house by asking her for flowers from her garden then gun her down.

A total of 87 people were killed or missing under the rubble after an Israeli attack on Saturday on northern Gaza's town of Beit Lahiya, with more than 40 wounded, the Palestinian enclave's health ministry said on Sunday.

The Israeli military has said it was investigating reports of the incident, which left one of the highest casualty tolls in months. Earlier, it said a total of 73 reported by the Hamas media office appeared exaggerated given the nature of the munitions used in the strike, which it said hit a Hamas target.

Gaza's health ministry said rescue operations were being hindered by communications problems and by the Israeli military operation still going on around the area, close to the border line with Israel, the ministry said.

"Victims are still under the rubble and on the road and ambulance teams and civil emergency can't reach them," it said in a statement.

The strike, late on Saturday night, came two weeks into a major operation around the town of Jabalia, just to the south of Beit Lahiya, where Israeli troops backed with tanks have been trying to squeeze out remaining Hamas fighters.

"Horrifying scenes unfolding in Gaza, amidst conflict, relentless Israeli strikes & an ever-worsening humanitarian crisis. I condemn the continuing attacks on civilians," U.N. Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland posted on X.

"Hostages must be freed, displacement of Palestinians must cease, & civilians must be protected," he added.

Evacuation orders, directing people south, have fuelled fears among many Palestinians that the operation is intended to clear them out of the northern part of Gaza in order to help ensure Israeli control of the area after the war.

Israel has denied any such plans, saying it is trying to protect civilians and separate them from Hamas fighters.

The military says it has killed scores of armed Palestinian fighters, located weapons, and dismantled a variety of military infrastructure during the operation in Jabalia, home to one of Gaza's eight historic refugee camps.

Residents in Jabalia said Israeli forces raided shelters housing displaced families and detained dozens of men.

The death last week of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had drawn hopes of a possible opening up of moves to end the fighting in Gaza, more than a year after the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel by Hamas-led gunmen who killed some 1,200 people and seized 251 hostages.

But the latest incident underscores how intense the conflict in Gaza still remains, even as Israel's main focus has shifted north to its operation against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.

More than 42,600 Palestinians have been killed during Israel's ground offensive, according to Palestinian health ministry figures, and thousands more are thought to be buried under the rubble. Much of the coastal enclave has been destroyed and most of its 2.3 million population has been displaced.

As the fighting has continued, health officials have reported stark shortages of food, fuel and medical supplies to treat patients in the three remaining hospitals still partially operating in the area.

Officials at the Kamal Adwan, Indonesian and Al-Awda hospitals said their facilities were besieged by Israeli forces, and at Kamal Adwan Hospital officials said the facility came under Israeli fire.