Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu on Thurs­day vowed to car­ry out “full force” strikes against Hezbol­lah un­til it ceas­es fir­ing rock­ets across the bor­der, dim­ming hopes for a cease-fire pro­pos­al put forth by U.S. and Eu­ro­pean of­fi­cials.

Is­rael car­ried out a new strike in the Lebanese cap­i­tal, which it said killed a se­nior Hezbol­lah com­man­der, and the mil­i­tant group launched dozens of rock­ets in­to Is­rael. Tens of thou­sands of Is­raeli and Lebanese peo­ple liv­ing near their coun­tries’ bor­der have been dis­placed by the fight­ing.

Ne­tanyahu spoke as he land­ed in New York to at­tend the an­nu­al U.N. Gen­er­al As­sem­bly meet­ing, where U.S. and Eu­ro­pean of­fi­cials were putting heavy pres­sure on both sides of the con­flict to ac­cept a pro­posed 21-day halt in the fight­ing to give time for diplo­ma­cy and avert all-out war.

Near­ly 700 peo­ple have been killed in Lebanon this week as Is­rael dra­mat­i­cal­ly es­ca­lat­ed strikes, say­ing it is tar­get­ing Hezbol­lah’s mil­i­tary ca­pac­i­ties. Is­raeli lead­ers say they are de­ter­mined to stop the group’s cross-bor­der at­tacks, which be­gan af­ter Hamas’ Oct. 7 at­tack that ig­nit­ed the war in Gaza.

Is­rael’s “pol­i­cy is clear,” Ne­tanyahu said. “We are con­tin­u­ing to strike Hezbol­lah with full force. And we will not stop un­til we reach all our goals, chief among them the re­turn of the res­i­dents of the north se­cure­ly to their homes.”

Just be­fore his com­ments, the Is­raeli mil­i­tary said it killed a Hezbol­lah drone com­man­der, Mo­hammed Hus­sein Surour, in an airstrike in the sub­urbs of Beirut. Hezbol­lah did not im­me­di­ate­ly com­ment on the claim. The Health Min­istry said two peo­ple were killed and 15 wound­ed in the strike.

The strike gut­ted an apart­ment in a res­i­den­tial build­ing in Dahiyeh, the main­ly Shi­ite sub­urb where Hezbol­lah has a strong pres­ence, ac­cord­ing to As­so­ci­at­ed Press pho­tos of the scene.

Over the past week, Is­rael has car­ried out sev­er­al strikes in Beirut tar­get­ing se­nior Hezbol­lah com­man­ders. One strike in east­ern Lebanon on Thurs­day killed 20 peo­ple, most of them Syr­i­an mi­grants, ac­cord­ing to Lebanese health of­fi­cials.

Is­rael hit 75 sites ear­ly Thurs­day across south­ern and east­ern Lebanon and launched a new wave of strikes in the evening, the mil­i­tary said. Through­out the day, Hezbol­lah fired some 175 pro­jec­tiles in­to Is­rael, the Is­raeli mil­i­tary said. Most were in­ter­cept­ed or fell in open ar­eas, spark­ing some wild­fires, though one rock­et hit a street in a town near the north­ern city of Safed.

Is­rael has talked of a pos­si­ble ground in­va­sion in­to Lebanon to dri­ve Hezbol­lah — an Iran­ian-backed Shi­ite group that is the strongest armed force in Lebanon — away from the bor­der. It has moved thou­sands of troops to the north in prepa­ra­tion. Some 100,000 Lebanese have fled their homes in the past week, stream­ing in­to Beirut and points fur­ther north.

In Is­rael, mil­i­tary ve­hi­cles trans­port­ed tanks and ar­mored ve­hi­cles to­ward the coun­try’s north­ern bor­der with Lebanon a day af­ter com­man­ders is­sued a call-up of re­servists. Sev­er­al tanks ar­rived in Kiry­at Shmona, a hard-hit town just sev­er­al miles from the bor­der.

The es­ca­la­tion has raised fears of a re­peat – or worse – of the 2006 war be­tween the two sides that wreaked de­struc­tion across south­ern Lebanon and oth­er parts of the coun­try and saw heavy Hezbol­lah rock­et fire on Is­raeli cities.

“An­oth­er full-scale war could be dev­as­tat­ing for both Is­rael and Lebanon,” U.S. De­fense Sec­re­tary Lloyd Austin said af­ter talks with his British and Aus­tralian coun­ter­parts in Lon­don.

U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken was at the U.N. meet­ing with Is­raeli of­fi­cials over the truce pro­pos­al. Speak­ing in an in­ter­view with MSNBC, he said ma­jor pow­ers, the Eu­ro­peans and Arab na­tions were unit­ed, “every­one speak­ing with one clear voice about the need to get that cease-fire in the north.”

“I can’t speak for him,” Blinken said of Ne­tanyahu.

Hezbol­lah has not yet re­spond­ed to the pro­pos­al. Lebanon’s care­tak­er Prime Min­is­ter Na­jib Mikati wel­comed it, but his gov­ern­ment has no sway over the group.

Ne­tanyahu’s of­fice down­played the ini­tia­tive, say­ing in a state­ment that it was on­ly a pro­pos­al.

One of Ne­tanyahu’s far-right gov­ern­ing part­ners threat­ened on Thurs­day to sus­pend co­op­er­a­tion with his gov­ern­ment if it signs on­to a tem­po­rary cease-fire with Hezbol­lah – and to quit com­plete­ly if a per­ma­nent deal is reached. It was the lat­est sign of dis­plea­sure from Ne­tanyahu’s al­lies to­ward in­ter­na­tion­al cease-fire ef­forts.

“If a tem­po­rary cease-fire be­comes per­ma­nent, we will re­sign from the gov­ern­ment,” said Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ita­mar Ben-Gvir, head of the Jew­ish Pow­er par­ty.

If Ben-Gvir leaves the coali­tion, Ne­tanyahu would lose his par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty and could see his gov­ern­ment come top­pling down, though op­po­si­tion lead­ers have said they would of­fer sup­port for a cease-fire deal.

Hezbol­lah has in­sist­ed it would halt its strikes on­ly if there is a cease-fire in Gaza, where Is­rael has bat­tled Hamas for near­ly a year. That ap­pears out of reach de­spite months of ne­go­ti­a­tions led by the Unit­ed States, Egypt and Qatar.

One day af­ter Hamas’ Oct 7 at­tack on south­ern Is­rael that trig­gered the war in Gaza, Hezbol­lah be­gan fir­ing rock­ets in­to north­ern Is­rael, bring­ing Is­raeli coun­ter­fire and a cy­cle of reprisals that has gone on near dai­ly since. Hezbol­lah says its bar­rages are a show of sup­port for Pales­tini­ans and that it is tar­get­ing Is­raeli mil­i­tary fa­cil­i­ties, though rock­ets have al­so hit civil­ian ar­eas.

Be­fore this week, the cross-bor­der ex­changes had killed about 600 peo­ple in Lebanon, most­ly mil­i­tants but in­clud­ing more than 100 civil­ians, and about four dozen peo­ple in Is­rael, rough­ly half of them sol­diers and the rest civil­ians. The fight­ing al­so forced tens of thou­sands to flee homes on both sides of the bor­der.

Is­rael says its es­ca­lat­ed strikes across Lebanon the past week are tar­get­ing Hezbol­lah rock­et launch­ers and oth­er mil­i­tary in­fra­struc­ture. Since Mon­day, strikes have killed more than 690 peo­ple in Lebanon, around a quar­ter of them women and chil­dren, ac­cord­ing to lo­cal health au­thor­i­ties.

The cam­paign opened with what is wide­ly be­lieved to be an Is­raeli at­tack on Sept. 18 and 19 det­o­nat­ing thou­sands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbol­lah, killing at least 39 peo­ple and maim­ing thou­sands more, in­clud­ing civil­ians.

Hezbol­lah in turn has fired hun­dreds of rock­ets in­to Is­rael. Sev­er­al peo­ple in Is­rael have been wound­ed. On Wednes­day, the group fired on Tel Aviv for the first time with a longer-range mis­sile that was in­ter­cept­ed.

Ear­ly Thurs­day, an Is­raeli airstrike hit a build­ing hous­ing Syr­i­an work­ers and their fam­i­lies near the an­cient city of Baal­bek in Lebanon’s east­ern Bekaa Val­ley. The Lebanese Health Min­istry said 19 Syr­i­ans and a Lebanese were killed, one of the dead­liest sin­gle strikes in Is­rael’s in­ten­si­fied air cam­paign.

Hus­sein Sal­loum, a lo­cal of­fi­cial in You­nine, said most of the dead were women and chil­dren. The state news agency had ini­tial­ly re­port­ed that 23 peo­ple were dead.

Lebanon, with a pop­u­la­tion of around 6 mil­lion, hosts near­ly 780,000 reg­is­tered Syr­i­an refugees and hun­dreds of thou­sands who are un­reg­is­tered — the world’s high­est refugee pop­u­la­tion per capi­ta.

NEW YORK (AP)