Lebanon's Hezbollah movement fired heavy rocket barrages at Israel on Sunday, and the Israeli military said houses had been destroyed or set alight near Tel Aviv, after a powerful Israeli airstrike killed at least 29 people in Beirut the day before, Reuters reported.

Israel also struck Beirut's Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs, where intensified bombardment over the last two weeks has coincided with signs of progress in U.S.-led ceasefire talks.

Hezbollah, which has previously vowed to respond to attacks on Beirut by targeting Tel Aviv, said it had launched precision missiles at two military sites in Tel Aviv and nearby.

Police said there were multiple impact sites in the area of Petah Tikvah, on the eastern side of Tel Aviv, and that several people had minor injuries.

The Israel Defense Forces said a direct hit on a neighbourhood had left "houses in flames and ruins". Television footage showed an apartment damaged by rocket fire.

Israel's military said Hezbollah had fired 250 rockets at Israel, of which many were intercepted, with sirens sounding across most of the country. At least four people had been injured by shrapnel.

Video obtained by Reuters showed a projectile exploding as it smashed into the roof of a building in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya.

Israel's military warned on social media that it planned to target Hezbollah facilities in southern Beirut before strikes that demolished two apartment blocks, according to security sources in Lebanon. Afterwards, the IDF said it had hit command centres "deliberately embedded between civilian buildings".

On Sunday, the Israeli military said it carried out strikes against 12 Hezbollah command centers in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh.

On Saturday, it had carried out one of its deadliest and most powerful strikes on the centre of Beirut, read the report.

Lebanon's health ministry on Sunday raised the death toll from 20 to 29. It said a total of 84 people had been killed on Saturday, taking the death toll to 3,754 since October 2023.

The IDF did not comment on Saturday's strike in the Lebanese capital or say what it had attacked.

Israel went on the offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah in September, pounding the south, the Bekaa Valley and Beirut's southern suburbs with airstrikes after nearly a year of hostilities ignited by the Gaza war.

The Israeli offensive has uprooted more than 1 million people in Lebanon.

Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.

U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein highlighted progress in negotiations during a visit to Beirut last week, before travelling to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz, and then returning to Washington.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Sunday said a U.S. ceasefire proposal was awaiting final approval from Israel.

"We must pressure the Israeli government and maintain the pressure on Hezbollah to accept the U.S. proposal for a ceasefire," he said in Beirut after meeting Lebanese officials.

Israeli media reported that Netanyahu had convened a meeting of his security cabinet for 5 p.m. (1500 GMT).

Axios reporter Barak Ravid in a post on social media cited an unnamed Israeli official saying that Israel is moving towards a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon.

But a separate report from Israel's public broadcaster Kan said there was no green light given on an agreement in Lebanon, with issues still yet to be resolved.

Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border, and the Lebanese army to deploy in the buffer zone, Reuters reported.

The Lebanese army said on Sunday at least one soldier had been killed and 18 more injured in an Israeli strike that caused severe damage at an army centre in Al-Amiriya near the southern city of Tyre.

The Israeli military said it regretted the incident and was investigating, and that it was fighting against Hezbollah, not the Lebanese Army.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said the attack "represents a direct bloody message rejecting all efforts to reach a ceasefire, strengthen the army's presence in the south, and implement ... 1701".

Borrell said the EU was ready to allocate 200 million euros ($208 million) to support the Lebanese army.

A gunman was dead and three policemen injured after a shooting near the Israeli embassy in neighbouring Jordan, a security source and state media said on Sunday.

Police shot a gunman who had fired at a police patrol in the Rabiah neighbourhood of Amman, state news agency Petra reported, citing public security, adding investigations were ongoing, Reuters reported.

Jordanian police had earlier cordoned off an area near the heavily policed embassy after gunshots were heard, witnesses said. Two witnesses said police and ambulances rushed to the Rabiah neighbourhood, where the embassy is located.

The area is a flashpoint for frequent demonstrations against Israel. The kingdom has witnessed some of the biggest peaceful rallies across the region as anti-Israel sentiment runs high over the war in Gaza.

Police had called on residents to stay in their homes as security personnel searched for the culprits, a security source said.

Many of Jordan’s 12 million citizens are of Palestinian origin, they or their parents having been expelled or fled to Jordan in the fighting that accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948. Many have family ties on the Israeli side of the Jordan River, read the report.

Jordan's peace treaty with Israel is unpopular among many citizens who see normalisation of relations as betraying the rights of their Palestinian compatriots.

A powerful airstrike killed 11 people in central Beirut on Saturday, the Lebanese civil defence said, shaking the capital as Israel pressed its offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.

The attack destroyed an eight-storey building and caused a large number of fatalities and injuries, Lebanon's National News Agency said. Footage broadcast by Lebanon's Al Jadeed station showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it, Reuters reported.

Israel used bunker buster bombs in the strike, leaving a deep crater, the agency said. Beirut smelled strongly of explosives hours after the attack.

The blasts shook the capital at around 4 a.m. (0200 GMT). Security sources said at least four bombs were dropped in the attack.

It marked the fourth Israeli airstrike this week targeting a central area of Beirut, in contrast to the bulk of Israel's attacks on the capital region, which have hit the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs. On Sunday an Israeli airstrike killed a Hezbollah media official in the Ras al-Nabaa district of central Beirut.

Rescuers searched through rubble, in an area of the city known for its antique shops.

HOSPITALISED DAUGHTER

A man whose family was hurt tried to comfort a traumatized woman outside a hospital. Car windows were shattered.

"There was dust and wrecked houses, people running and screaming, they were running, my wife is in hospital, my daughter is in hospital, my aunt is in the hospital," said the man, Nemir Zakariya, who held up a picture of his daughter.

"This is the little one, and my son also got hurt - this is my daughter, she is in the American University (of Beirut Medical Centre), this is what happened."

Israel launched a major offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon in September, following nearly a year of cross-border hostilities ignited by the Gaza war, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.

Israeli strikes killed at least 62 people and injured 111 in Lebanon on Thursday, bringing the toll since October 2023 to 3,645 dead and 15,355 injured, Lebanon's health ministry said. The figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Hezbollah and the Lebanese government accuse Israel of indiscriminate bombing that kills civilians. Israel denies the allegation and says it takes numerous steps to avoid the deaths of civilians.

Hezbollah strikes in the same period have killed more than 100 people in northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. They include more than 70 soldiers killed in strikes in northern Israel and the Golan Heights and in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israel.

The conflict began when Hezbollah, Tehran's most important ally in the region, opened fire in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas after it launched the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.

A U.S. mediator travelled to Lebanon and Israel this week in an effort to secure a ceasefire. The envoy, Amos Hochstein, indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz.