Lebanese Mayor among 6 killed as Israeli airstrike hits municipal building

The strike came despite US concerns about rising death tolls and fears of a wider regional escalation in the Middle East.

In Short

• Israeli strikes continue despite US concerns over escalation
• Steps taken to mitigate risk of harming civilians, says Israel
• Israeli military evacuation orders now affect more than a quarter of Lebanon

An Israeli air strike on the municipal building in Nabatieh, a major town in southern Lebanon, which serves as a provincial capital, killed at least six people including the mayor, two security sources said.

The strike came despite US concerns about rising death tolls and fears of a wider regional escalation.

Hours earlier, at least one Israeli strike hit Beirut's southern suburbs, Reuters witnesses said, after the US said it opposed the scope of Israeli attacks in Lebanon's capital.

Reuters witnesses heard two blasts and saw plumes of smoke emerging from two separate neighbourhoods. It came after Israel issued an evacuation order early on Wednesday, which mentioned only one building.

The Israeli military has in recent weeks carried out strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, the stronghold of Iran-backed Hezbollah, without advance warnings, or with a warning for one area while striking more broadly.

The Israeli military said it conducted a strike on an underground Hezbollah weapons stockpile in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh.

"Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including advancing warnings to the population in the area," the Israeli military said.

Israeli military evacuation orders now affect more than a quarter of Lebanon, according to the UN refugee agency, two weeks after Israel began incursions into the south of the country that it says are aimed at driving back Hezbollah.

Some Western countries have been pushing for a ceasefire between the two neighbours, as well as in Gaza, though the United States says it continues to support Israel and was sending an anti-missile system and troops.

On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US had expressed its concerns to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's administration about the recent strikes.

"When it comes to the scope and nature of the bombing campaign that we saw in Beirut over the past few weeks, it's something that we made clear to the government of Israel we had concerns with, and we were opposed to," he told reporters, adopting a harsher tone than Washington has taken so far.