Israeli air strikes and clashes between troops and Palestinian fighters continue to rock Gaza, as Israel’s army warned it had readied an “offensive” against the Lebanese Hezbollah movement on the country’s northern front, AFP reports.

The Israeli military, which has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah since October, said late Monday that “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved and validated”.

On Wednesday the military said its warplanes had struck Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon overnight, while reporting a drone had infiltrated near the border town of Metula.

Hezbollah claimed a drone attack on Israeli troops in Metula. The Iran-backed group also announced the death of two of its fighters.

The army’s announcement that its plans for an offensive in Lebanon had been approved, along with a warning from Foreign Minister Israel Katz of Hezbollah’s destruction in a “total war”, came as US envoy Amos Hochstein visited the region to push for de-escalation.