Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed 40 people around the eastern city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley on Wednesday, according to the country's health ministry, and at dusk more strikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs, Reuters reported.

Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have exchanged fire for over a year in parallel with the Gaza war but fighting has escalated since late September, with Israeli troops intensifying bombing of Lebanon's south and east and making ground incursions into border villages.

Israeli strikes on Baalbek and the Bekaa Valley killed 40 people and wounded 53, the health ministry said. The Israeli military did not comment.

Israel has repeatedly battered strongholds of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut.

The Israeli military ordered residents in the southern suburbs to evacuate several locations on Wednesday. Two waves of bombing followed, one late Wednesday and another early Thursday.

Lebanon's Al Jadeed TV reported there were at least four strikes on Thursday. There was no immediate report of casualties or details on what was hit.

Hezbollah secretary general Naim Qassem on Wednesday said he did not believe that political action would bring an end to hostilities, read the report.

He said there could be a road to indirect negotiations if Israel stopped its attacks.

"When the enemy decides to stop the aggression, there is a path for negotiations that we have clearly defined - indirect negotiations through the Lebanese state and speaker (of parliament Nabih) Berri," Qassem said.

U.S. diplomatic efforts to halt fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which included a 60-day ceasefire proposal, faltered last week ahead of the U.S. election on Tuesday in which former President Donald Trump recaptured the White House.

More than 3,000 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon over the last year, the vast majority in the past six weeks.

Lebanese rescuers scoured a destroyed apartment building in the town of Barja, south of Beirut, for bodies or survivors after an Israeli strike on Tuesday evening killed 20 people there, Lebanon's health ministry said.

Moussa Zahran, who lived on one of the upper floors of the building, returned to sift through the ruins of his home. His burned feet were wrapped in gauze and his son and wife were in hospital after being wounded in the strike.

"These rocks that you see here weigh 100 kilos; they fell on a 13-kilo kid," he said, referring to his son and the apartment wall that collapsed on him during the strike.

It was not clear whether the strike targeted a member of Hezbollah. There was no evacuation warning ahead of the air raid.

Hezbollah said on Wednesday it had fired missiles at an Israeli military base near Ben Gurion Airport. Israeli media reported a rocket had landed near the airport.

Later, the Israeli military said dozens of projectiles had crossed into Israel from Lebanon, some of which were intercepted, Reuters reported.

Efforts to bring a diplomatic end to the conflict have stalled. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday appointed Israel Katz as defence minister, who vowed to defeat Hezbollah so people displaced from northern Israel could return home.

Berri - a Hezbollah ally and diplomatic interlocutor - met the U.S. and Saudi ambassadors to Lebanon on Wednesday to discuss political developments, his office said, without providing further details.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, meanwhile, congratulated the U.S. president-elect.

Netanyahu hailed Trump's election, while senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Trump would be tested on his statements that he can stop the Gaza war in hours as president.

JP Singh, Indian foreign ministry’s joint secretary for the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran division, has met with Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Kabul.

The two sides discussed political and economic relations between Afghanistan and India, and people's movements, the Afghan foreign ministry said in a statement.

Muttaqi expressed hope that relations between India and Afghanistan would expand in various fields. He stressed that to develop trade relations, Indian visa facilities should be increased for Afghan citizens, especially businesspersons.

He also thanked India for its humanitarian aid to Afghanistan and called India's pledges in the development sector promising.

According to the statement, JP Singh said that relations with Afghanistan are important for India and have an ancient history.

The Indian diplomat said that along with humanitarian aid to Afghans, India has also started development assistance to Afghanistan and is engaged in technical discussions with relevant Afghan institutions. JP Singh stressed that the development of relations between the two countries is important, adding that in the near future, negotiations will be held between technical delegations of regional countries including Afghanistan and India on the Chabahar port. He also promised to increase Indian visa facilities for Afghans.

The Ministry of Interior’s spokesman Abdul Matin Qane said on Wednesday the Islamic Emirate “completely” rejects the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report that poppy cultivation has increased by 19 percent this year, against 2023.

UNODC released its report on Wednesday, claiming opium cultivation rose by 19 percent despite a ban by the Islamic Emirate that almost eradicated the crop.

The 19 percent increase (12,800 hectares of poppies) year-on-year remains far below the 232,000 hectares cultivated when the IEA’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada banned the crop in April 2022.

Qane said in a statement the report is far from the truth.

"Since narcotics are a destructive phenomenon and forbidden from the perspective of the religion of Islam, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan based on the order of the leadership of the Emirate, has put the fight against this phenomenon as a priority.”

For years Afghanistan was the world's biggest supplier of opium and heroin.

Many farmers in Afghanistan were hit hard financially by the ban and have not been able to reap the same profits from alternative crops.

The Islamic Emirate has however repeatedly called for international support for farmers to transition to alternative crops and livelihoods.