Israeli airstrikes targeted a neighborhood in the heart of Lebanon’s capital late Monday evening, slamming into an area near the Parliament, several embassies and the U.N. headquarters, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency.

Ambulance sirens echoed through the area in Beirut, but no official casualty figures have been released. A reporter with The Associated Press at the scene described significant casualties on the street.

Since late September, Israel has dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon, vowing to cripple the militant group Hezbollah and end its barrages into Israel. More than 3,400 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli fire — 80% of them in the past month — Lebanon’s Health Ministry says.

The current wave of conflict gripping the Middle East began when the Palestinian militant group Hamas stormed from Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Hezbollah began firing into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed over 43,800 Palestinians, according to local health authorities. The officials do not distinguish between militants and civilians but say most of those killed are women and children. The fighting has left some 76 people dead in Israel, including 31 soldiers.

___

Here’s the Latest:

BEIRUT — An Israeli airstrike hit a densely populated residential area in central Beirut on Monday evening, close to major landmarks including the U.N. headquarters in Lebanon, the country’s parliament, the prime minister’s office and several embassies, including the EU delegation.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two missiles hit the area of Zoqaq al-Blat. The strike follows reports that the U.S. envoy has delayed his visit for cease-fire talks.

Ambulance sirens echoed through the area, but no official casualty figures have been released. A reporter with The Associated Press at the scene described significant casualties on the street. The target of the airstrike remains unclear, and the Israeli army did not issue a prior warning.

Many areas in central Beirut, including Zoqaq al-Blat, became a refuge for people displaced by the ongoing conflict in southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut.

This is the second consecutive day of Israeli airstrikes on central Beirut after more than a month-long pause on strikes in that part of the capital. On Sunday, a strike in the area of Ras el-Nabaa killed Hezbollah media spokesperson Mohammed Afif, along with six other people, including a woman. Later that day, four people were killed in a separate strike in the commercial district of Mar Elias. It remains unclear what the target of that strike was.

RIO DE JANEIRO ― President Joe Biden told fellow global leaders at a Group of 20 summit Monday that his soon-to-end administration would keep pushing to bring an equitable end to Israel’s devastating war against Hamas in Gaza.

Seated between leaders of France and India at a long oval table at the summit site in Rio de Janeiro, Biden cited U.S. efforts on hunger and poverty in his soon-to-end four years in office, saying he had put $160 billion into global development.

With fewer than three months left in his term, Biden also said his administration would keep pressing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on its conduct of the war and the need to end it. “Israel has a right to defend itself after the worse massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. But how it defends itself ... matters a great deal.”

“We’re going to keep pushing to accelerate a cease-fire deal that ensures Israel’s security and brings hostages home and ends the suffering of the Palestinian people and children,” he said.

Biden also said Hamas was still refusing a deal, adding, “I am asking everyone to increase the pressure on Hamas.”

TEL AVIV, Israel — United Nations aid organizations say a convoy carrying food supplies in Gaza was attacked over the weekend, further contributing to severe food shortages across the besieged territory.

UNRWA, the main U.N. agency responsible for distributing aid in Gaza, said gunmen stole aid from 97 of the convoy’s 109 trucks on Saturday.

The Israeli military has said that attacking and stealing aid is an ongoing problem, especially in southern Gaza. COGAT, the military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, said convoys are attacked by Hamas militants and known crime families. The military did not have an immediate response to Saturday’s attack.

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Health Ministry said the toll from Sunday’s Israeli strike in central Beirut rose to seven killed, including a woman, and 26 wounded.

The Health Ministry also said Monday that three people were killed and 29 wounded in a separate strike Sunday in the Mar Elias area of central Beirut.

The Hezbollah militant group said five members were killed including its spokesperson Mohammad Afif in the strike in the Ras Al Nabaa area.

DAMASCUS — Nine members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group who were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Damascus were buried Monday in the Syrian capital.

Women in the crowd wept as the dead were transported to the Yarmouk cemetery in the Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus. Some held images of slain Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

Israeli strikes on Thursday targeted two buildings with the offices of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, killing 15 people, including Syrian civilians, and wounding 20 others, officials said.

The funeral on Monday was held for the nine Islamic Jihad members, including two high-ranking officials — commander Abdel Aziz Saeed Minawi and Rasmi Youssef Abu Issa, who was in charge of the group’s Arab affairs.

The wife of Ali Kabalan, a 44-year-old fighter who was killed Thursday, told The Associated Press that while the loss was unbearable, she and their five children were “proud” that he died “a martyr for the cause of Palestine’s liberation.”

The Israeli military claimed the strikes dealt significant damage to its group’s leadership. Israel has accused the Islamic Jihad, alongside Hamas, of coordinating the Oct. 7 attacks on southern Israel that ignited the ongoing war.

Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria targeting members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and officials from Iranian-backed groups.

GENEVA — The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees says Israel would have the “responsibility” to respond to their needs if it goes through with plans to ban the agency.

Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of UNRWA, on Monday stepped up appeals to the international community to help convince Israeli authorities not to go through with the ban.

Measures passed by the Knesset, if carried out as anticipated in January, would ban UNRWA from operating and cut all ties between the agency and the Israeli government.

“The clock is ticking,” Lazzarini told reporters in Geneva.

Critics say the Knesset moves culminated a long-running campaign against UNRWA, which Israel contends has been infiltrated by Hamas. They say Israel’s real aim is to sideline the issue of Palestinian refugees.

Lazzarini all but suggested that the considerable work helping Palestinian refugees would otherwise fall to Israel under international humanitarian law.

“I keep being asked, Is there yes, or not, a Plan B? There is no plan B within the U.N. agency ― within the U.N. family because there is no other agency geared to provide the same activities,” he said.

“UNRWA is the response of the international community to the plight of the Palestinian refugees, through the mandate provided by the GA (United Nations General Assembly) resolution,” Lazzarini added. “So, if there is no U.N. or international community response, the responsibility will go back to the occupying power, being Israel.”

“And that’s where we have to ask: Where does a plan B sit today?” he said.

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military said Monday it had delivered fuel and medical equipment to hospitals in a besieged part of northern Gaza, where troops have launched an intense operation since October.

COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza said, said they delivered 10,000 liters of fuel and 149 packages of medical equipment to two hospitals, and helped oversee the evacuation of 64 patients and their escorts, along with the U.N., from hard-hit hospitals in the north.

The hospitals that serve the area have been largely inaccessible because of the fighting, and a raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital last month left it barely functional.

Israel has faced international pressure to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, particularly in the war-ravaged north. Last week, the United States said it would not limit arms transfers to Israel as it had threatened to do in October if aid was not significantly stepped up.

In November, COGAT said they facilitated at least two aid deliveries to the far north, after a month in which virtually no supplies reached these areas. But international aid groups warned much more is needed, and famine is imminent in parts of northern Gaza.