The latest bombardment came as the U.S. said it would not reduce its military support for Israel after a deadline passed for allowing more humanitarian aid into Gaza.

A total of at least 12 people were killed on Wednesday in southern Lebanon, including six Israeli soldiers and six people who died when Israeli jets hit a building, reports from both Israel and Lebanon showed.

Israel suffered one of the deadliest days of its ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Wednesday when six of its soldiers were killed in combat near the border.

The IDF statement claims that as Israeli forces advanced deeper into southern Lebanon past the second line of border villages for the first time, a gunfight with Hezbollah operatives claimed the lives of the slain soldiers,

Israeli airstrikes killed at least 46 people in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, including 11 at a makeshift cafeteria in an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone, medics said. In Lebanon, warplanes struck Beirut's southern suburbs and killed 18 people elsewhere in the country on Tuesday.

Gaza Heavy Israeli air strikes continued across Lebanon overnight with at least sixteen people killed and dozens more wounded, according to state media. Eight women and four children were among fifteen people killed in Israeli strikes on the southern village of Joun,