Talks over ceasefire proposals will continue - Netanyahu

Israeli teams had meetings to discuss the US ceasefire proposals with Lebanon and will continue discussions in the days ahead, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said, adding that he appreciated the US efforts.

He made the comments in a statement after Israel rejected a push by allies for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon and vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah militants "until victory".

"Our teams met (yesterday) to discuss the US initiative and how we can advance the shared goal of returning people safely to their homes. We will continue those discussions in the coming days," he said in the statement.

It comes as 25 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since the early hours of this morning, the Lebanese health minister said.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported that "a family of nine was martyred at 3:00 a.m. in an enemy airstrike on a three-story house in Shebaa," a town in southern Lebanon, the target of days of Israeli attacks.

At night, Israeli warplanes carried out a wide-ranging aerial attack, launching a series of intense airstrikes focused on the city of Nabatieh, according to the agency, which also reported injuries.

Israeli airstrikes on five provinces in the country yesterday killed 92 people and injured 153 others, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Israeli bombing of Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon has killed hundreds of people this week, while the militant group has retaliated with rocket barrages.

The United States, France and other allies unveiled the 21-day truce, after President Joe Biden and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Yesterday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said there would be no ceasefire in the north, where Israeli jets have been carrying out the heaviest bombardment against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in decades.

After Mr Netanyahu left for New York yesterday, his office issued a statement saying the prime minister had ordered Israeli troops to continue fighting with full force in Lebanon.

"Israel shares the aims of the US-led initiative of enabling people along our northern border to return safely and securely to their homes," the statement said.

"Israel appreciates the US efforts in this regard because the US role is indispensable in advancing stability and security in the region," it said.

Mr Netanyahu is due to address the United Nations General Assembly later today.

The United States expressed frustration at the rejection of the ceasefire, saying the truce proposal had taken "a lot of care and effort".

"We wouldn't have made that statement, we wouldn't have worked on that if we didn't have reason to believe that the conversations that we were having with the Israelis in particular, were supportive of the goal there," National Security spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

Mr Macron said later it was "a mistake" for Mr Netanyahu to refuse a ceasefire and that he would have to take "responsibility" for a regional escalation.

Speaking in Canada where he met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau - who also backed the ceasefire – Mr Macron noted that the ceasefire plan had been prepared with Mr Netanyahu himself.

'Intolerable'

The joint ceasefire statement said the situation in Lebanon has become "intolerable" and "is in nobody's interest, neither of the people of Israel nor of the people of Lebanon".

More than 1,500 people have been killed since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah erupted last October, with Thursday's toll bringing the number of people killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since Monday alone to more than 700.

According to the International Organisation for Migration, about 118,000 people have been displaced by the fighting in Lebanon over the past week.

The UN refugee agency said that more than 30,000 people, mainly Syrians, crossed into Syria from Lebanon in the past 72 hours.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israel's strategic affairs minister in New York, telling him the ceasefire would "allow civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes".

"Further escalation of the conflict will only make that objective more difficult," his spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.

The Israeli defence ministry meanwhile announced it had secured a new $8.7 billion aid package from the United States to support the country's ongoing military efforts, underlining the United States' unwillingness to use its military aid as leverage for a ceasefire.

Yemen missile

Israel's ongoing bombardments in Lebanon have raised fears of an all-out regional war in the Middle East.

Israel said earlier this month that it was shifting its focus from Gaza, where it has been fighting a war with Hamas since the 7 October attack, to its border with Lebanon.

Israel's military chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, has told soldiers to prepare for a possible ground offensive, according to an army statement.

Meanwhile, Yemen's Houthis said they had targeted Israel's cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with a ballistic missile and a drone in support of Gaza and Lebanon.

The Israeli army said it had intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early in the day.

The leader of Yemen's Houthi rebels, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, said in a televised address earlier that the group would "not hesitate to support Lebanon and Hezbollah".

Since November, the Houthis have targeted Red Sea shipping with drones and missiles, saying the actions are in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war, which was sparked by Hamas's 7 October attack on Israel.