Israel has stepped up strikes on the city’s southern suburbs in recent days, an area Israeli officials say hosts Hezbollah militants and infrastructure.

He appeared to be urging it to press the militant group, a close ally of Iran, to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.

At least 26 people were killed on Thursday in Israeli airstrikes in eastern and southern Lebanon, according to Lebanese authorities. Twelves bodies were retrieved from rubble after an Israeli strike targeted a civil defence centre in the eastern town of Baalbek,