Israel has pounded Lebanon with more than 120 air strikes in one of the heaviest days of bombing in weeks, Lebanese security sources said, as Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said his military was deepening its operations in the country. The bombing raids further ​strained a ceasefire announced on April 16th that was meant to halt fighting between Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hizbullah, and came as Iran said the United States had violated a separate truce by striking southern Iran.Lebanese security sources said Israeli strikes had hit across southern and eastern Lebanon on Tuesday.Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes in recent hours had ​killed 31 people and wounded 40, state news agency NNA reported early on Wednesday.It said 14 people were killed in the town of Burj al-Shamali in southern Lebanon, including two children and ⁠three women.The attack have further strained peace efforts as Iran said the United States had violated a ceasefire ​by striking targets near the contested Strait of Hormuz, potentially complicating efforts to bring the war to a close.Iran’s foreign ministry said US strikes in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, where Iranian media reported sounds of explosions early on Tuesday, represented a “gross violation” of a tenuous ceasefire in place for nearly seven weeks. The US said its attacks were defensive in nature, targeting missile sites and boats attempting to ​lay mines.US secretary of state Marco Rubio said it could take “a few days” to negotiate a deal to halt the conflict, after both sides had previously indicated progress on an initial agreement ​that would end hostilities and restart shipping through the Strait. That initial agreement would give negotiators 60 days to tackle more complex issues including Iran’s nuclear ⁠program.Smoke billows following an Israeli strike on the area of the Rawdat al-Salihin Mosque and the nearby cemetery in the southern city of Nabatieh. Photograph: Abbas Fakih / AFP via Getty Images In Lebanon, some strikes hit near the Beaufort Castle, a nearly 900-year-old fortress in southern Lebanon that Unesco has described as one of the best-preserved ‌examples ‌of ​medieval castles in the region. At least three strikes also hit near Lebanon’s largest water reservoir at the Qaraoun Dam in east Lebanon, Lebanon’s National News Agency said.In a statement on Tuesday, Netanyahu said the Israeli military “is operating with large ⁠forces in the field and capturing and controlling areas.”“We are ​fortifying the security strip to protect the northern communities,” he said in a ​reference to a self-declared security zone occupied by Israeli troops several kilometres inside southern Lebanon.Two sources said on Tuesday that the Israeli military ‌had expanded its ground operations in southern Lebanon past the security ​zone but gave no further details on the extent of the advance beyond the so-called Yellow Line.That line, separate from the UN-demarcated “Blue Line” marking ⁠the frontier between Lebanon and Israel after Israel’s withdrawal in 2000, ⁠forms part of a proposed buffer ​zone extending 5km to 10km into southern Lebanon.Israel’s military had ordered residents not to return to dozens of villages in the zone, and its troops have been destroying homes in the area.A man points into a destroyed building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike in Burj al-Shemali village near the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon. Photograph: Mohammed Zaatari/AP An Israeli military official said the military was “operating in a targeted manner beyond the Forward Defense Line in order to remove direct threats to the citizens of the State of Israel” and Israeli soldiers, “in accordance with the directives of the political echelon.” Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel would intensify its strikes against Hizbullah, while a US official said the Iran-backed group had ignored warnings to halt attacks that risked undermining negotiations to end the US-Israeli war on Iran.Hizbullah said on Tuesday it ‌had targeted Israeli forces and tanks ⁠advancing toward the southern Lebanese town of Zawtar al-Sharqiya with explosive drones, rockets and artillery.Lebanon’s health ministry says the cumulative toll from the Israeli offensive since March 2nd, when Hizbullah fired projectiles into Israel in response to the start of the Iran war, had reached ‌3,213 dead and 9,737 wounded as of May 26th.The Israeli military said that 10 of its soldiers had been killed since the April 16 ceasefire, six of them by Hizbullah’s explosive ​drones.The World Health Organisation has said at least 608 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli ​attacks since the truce.Hizbullah has not released figures for its own casualties. – Reuters