Israel carried out dozens of strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Wednesday, killing a city mayor, toppling buildings and causing widespread destruction in several southern areas.

The latest exchanges came as Israel faced increasing international pressure after UN peacekeepers in Lebanon were wounded, as well as over the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The Israeli military said its warplanes struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, where the Iran-backed militant group and its ally Amal hold sway.

Gulf leaders including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with EU counterparts in Brussels Wednesday for talks they hoped could help defuse an "extremely dangerous escalation" in the Middle East.

The 27-nation European Union is seeking to work more closely with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- over conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.

Iraqi Kurdish seamstress Sanaa will, like many other voters, boycott an election later this month, a signal of growing disillusionment with the political class that has long dominated the autonomous region.

Iraqi Kurdistan is seen as a relative oasis of stability in the turbulent Middle East and has historically been attractive to foreign investors thanks to its close ties to the United States and Europe.

The Israeli military launched strikes in southern Beirut on Wednesday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, saying it would leave Hezbollah forces near his country's border.

An AFP journalist saw black smoke rising from Beirut's Haret Hreik area after two strikes, which followed an Israeli military warning for residents to evacuate.

One of the strikes targeted weapons "stockpiled by Hezbollah in an underground storage facility", the military said.

Elie Alwan sheltered a displaced Shiite family from southern Lebanon in his peaceful Christian-majority village, believing they would be safe -- instead an Israeli air strike killed them, destroyed his home and injured his mother.

The October 14 strike on the north Lebanon village of Aito in the Zgharta district killed 23 people, including at least 12 women and two children, many of them displaced from south Lebanon, according to the official National News Agency.

"It's a massacre that happened in my home," said 42-year-old Alwan.

The Turkish government on Tuesday postponed until 2025 a parliamentary debate on a proposed tax on credit cards, which it sought to fund the arms industry as conflict rages in its neighbourhood.

Indignant Turks, who already face double-digit inflation, called their banks to lower their credit limits after the governing AKP party submitted the tax bill to parliament on Friday.

After the public outcry, the AKP announced Tuesday that it was delaying debating the bill until next year.

US troops have arrived in Israel as part of the deployment of a THAAD missile defense battery, the Pentagon said Tuesday, a move that will help protect Washington's ally but deepens the United States' involvement in the conflict.

The deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system comes as Israel prepares to hit back against Iran for a major ballistic missile attack earlier this month, and the battery will boost Israeli defenses in case Tehran strikes back again.

The United States warned Israel on Tuesday that it could withhold some of its billions of dollars in military assistance unless it improves aid delivery to the war-battered Gaza Strip within 30 days.

The warning comes a year into the Israel-Hamas war in which President Joe Biden has repeatedly pleaded with Israel to spare Palestinian civilians, although he has only once made good on a promise to stop a weapons shipment.

Standing in the ruins of his home, Nidal al-Arabeed took stock after more than 10 of his family members were killed by Israeli air strikes on the city of Jabalia, as the army tightened its siege on northern Gaza.

Among those killed were his parents and the children of his two siblings.

"My whole family was martyred when Israeli warplanes bombed our house without any warning," said Arabeed, 40, who worked as a daily labourer before war devastated Gaza.

Lebanon's prime minister told AFP on Tuesday his country was ready to bolster the army's presence in the country's south if there is a ceasefire to end weeks of intense Israeli air strikes and ground incursions targeting Hezbollah.

Najib Mikati said the international community had engaged in "serious efforts" to impose a ceasefire, which he said the Iran-backed militant group had already accepted.