BEIRUT/CAIRO/OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israel widened its airstrikes in Lebanon on Wednesday and shot down a missile that Hezbollah said it had fired at the Mossad spy service near Tel Aviv.

At least 51 people were killed and 223 wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Wednesday, the Lebanese health minister Firass Abiad said during a press conference.

Hezbollah claimed to have targeted the Mossad headquarters with what it described as a ballistic missile. Reuters could not independently confirm the type of rocket fired.

World leaders meanwhile expressed concern that the conflict - running in parallel to Israeli aggression in Gaza - was rapidly intensifying as the death toll in Lebanon rose and thousands of people fled their homes.

Israeli airstrikes this week have targeted Hezbollah leaders and hit hundreds of sites deep inside Lebanon while Hezbollah has fired barrages of rockets into Israel.

Wednesday morning’s Hezbollah strike was the first time since the start of the war that one of its missiles had been sighted above Tel Aviv - Israel’s economic capital and seen as a target with the potential to trigger an escalation in Israeli action.

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The Israeli military’s head of the northern command said his country had entered a new phase of its campaign and must be prepared for “manoeuvring and action,” a military statement said.

It did not specify if Major General Ori Gordin’s remarks, made during a visit on Tuesday to a brigade on Israel’s northern border, were a reference to a possible ground incursion into southern Lebanon.

Deadliest day

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have fled their homes and hospitals have filled with the wounded since an intensification of bombing on Monday, when more than 550 people were killed in Lebanon’s deadliest day since the end of a 1975-1990 civil war.

There was no let up on Wednesday. Israel said its warplanes were carrying out extensive strikes in south Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold further north.

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Hezbollah said in a statement it had fired a missile targeting the Mossad headquarters “in support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip…and in defence of Lebanon and its people”.

The Israeli military said a single surface-to-surface missile was intercepted by air defence systems after it was detected crossing from Lebanon. Spokesman Nadav Shoshani said he could not confirm what Hezbollah’s target was when it fired the missile from a village in Lebanon.

“The result was a heavy missile, going towards Tel Aviv, towards civilian areas in Tel Aviv. The Mossad headquarters is not in that area,” he said.

Israeli officials said the missile fired at Tel Aviv was shot down with a David’s Sling missile, a surface-to-air missile designed to destroy tactical ballistic missiles at low altitude.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the United States was deeply concerned by the reports of a rocket attack aimed at Mossad, but it still believed a diplomatic solution could be found to ease the violence.

Hezbollah blamed Mossad for assassinations of its leaders.

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It has also accused the spy agency of carrying out an operation last week in which booby-trapped pagers and radios of Hezbollah members exploded, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

At least 23 people were killed and at least 85 wounded in Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Wednesday at five different locations, according to a Reuters compilation of Lebanese health ministry statements.

Expanded targets

Israel has expanded the zones it has been striking since Tuesday night, with attacks for the first time on the beach resort town of Jiyyeh just south of Beirut and Maaysrah.

The strikes also took place in Bint Jbeil, Tebnin and Ain Qana in the south, the village of Joun in the Chouf district near the southern city of Sidon, and Maaysrah in northern Keserwan district.

As many as half a million people may have been displaced in Lebanon, its foreign minister said. In Beirut, thousands of displaced people who fled from southern Lebanon were sheltering in schools and other buildings.

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More than 60 people were evacuated by the Lebanese Army early on Wednesday from the Christian town of Alma Chaab, along the border with Israel, following strikes overnight.

“At least two houses were completely destroyed but thankfully they were empty and we had no deaths,” said Milad Eid, a resident.

Israeli authorities said the Galilee region of northern Israel was hit by heavy Hezbollah barrages on Wednesday morning.

In one salvo about 40 rockets were fired. Some were intercepted in mid-air, others struck open areas or penetrated air defences into populated areas, they said.

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In the Israeli town of Safed, an assisted living facility was hit but no injuries were reported, the authorities said.

Solidarity with Hamas

Near-daily exchanges of fire in the Israel-Lebanon border area started after war broke out last October between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Israel’s southern border, with Hezbollah saying it was acting in solidarity with its ally Hamas.

Israel’s focus has now turned to its northern frontier and southern Lebanon.

Tens of thousands of Israelis have been evacuated from their homes near the border, and the government has made their safe return an aim of the war, setting the stage for a long conflict.

Hezbollah has said it will not back down until the Gaza war ends.

Since Monday morning, the Israeli offensive has killed 569 people, including 50 children, and wounded 1,835 in Lebanon, Health Minister Firass Abiad told Al Jazeera Mubasher TV.

Pope Francis called the Israeli strikes a “terrible escalation” of the Middle East conflict, while British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres were among global leaders who said the fighting was pushing the region towards the brink.