Lebanon and Israel are set to hold the first direct diplomatic talks in decades on Tuesday in Washington following more than a month of war between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group that has rocked the tiny Mediterranean country.

At least 36 people were killed and dozens of others injured in Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon since dawn Wednesday, as regional escalation continued to flare up, Lebanese media reported.

Attacks hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley hours after a US-Iran ceasefire was announced.

Israel carried out strikes in Lebanon on Wednesday, hours after the United States and Iran reached a Pakistani-mediated two-week cease-fire.

Lebanon has been engulfed by the expanding Middle East war, after the Iran-backed group Hezbollah on Monday fired missiles at Israel to avenge the death of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

A British military drone flew over eastern Lebanon on the same day Israeli air strikes on Lebanon killed more than 300 people in less than 10 minutes, according to flight-tracking data analysed by Middle East Eye,

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the talks a "historic opportunity" but made it clear that no immediate breakthrough agreement was anticipated

Israeli strikes hit several dense commercial and residential areas in central Beirut without warning, hours after a ceasefire was announced in the US-Israeli war with Iran

AP journalists saw charred bodies in vehicles and on the ground at one of Beirut’s busiest intersections in the central Corniche al Mazraa neighborhood, a mixed commercial and residential area.

Within minutes, Lebanon became an open battlefield of fire. More than 100 airstrikes over a 10-minute span targeted, according to the Israeli army, “headquarters and military infrastructure