The attack was the third strike in the Lebanese capital this week, part of a wave of amped-up Israeli military activity across the country.

At least 11 people have been killed and several others injured after an Israeli strike flattened a multi-story residential building in central Beirut overnight, Lebanese officials said.

BEIRUT (Reuters) -Israeli forces pounded southern Lebanon and the outskirts of the capital Beirut on Friday, killing at least five medics, and ground troops clashed with Hezbollah fighters in the south.

Israel on Friday unleashed a spate of airstrikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, an area seen as a hotbed of Lebanon's Iran-allied Hezbollah movement. In the evening, the Israeli military carried out four airstrikes on the suburbs,

The envoy, Amos Hochstein, was in Israel and planned to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seeking a truce in the country’s war with the militant group Hezbollah.

An airstrike killed five people in central Beirut, and rockets fired from Lebanon killed one person in northern Israel and caused several injuries in a Tel Aviv suburb, amid a continuing U.S. push for a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hezbollah militants.

Lebanon's civil defense said the death toll was provisional as emergency responders were still digging through the rubble looking for survivors. The strikes were the fourth on the Lebanese capital in less than a week.

The strikes were the fourth on Beirut in less than a week. The escalation comes after a U.S. envoy traveled to the region this week in an attempt to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah.