More than 200 people, including women and children, were killed Monday and more than 1000 were wounded as the Israeli military said it had targeted more than 300 Hezbollah sites in Lebanon in an unprecedented wave of air strikes.

"So far more than 300 Hezbollah sites have been targeted" since Monday morning, the military said in a statement. It earlier said more than 150 air strikes were carried out within just one hour, between 6:30 am and 7:30 am.

Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of airstrikes on areas across south Lebanon and West Bekaa on Saturday, as Hezbollah rockets targeted north Israel and reached Safad.

Hezbollah said it fired salvos of Katyusha rockets at five Israeli military positions in northern Israel and another in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, as the Israeli army said it was striking “Hezbollah targets” in south Lebanon.

Ambassador James Kariuki, UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the U.N., has said that the UK is working to de-escalate and end the cycle of violence in Middle East, during a U.N. Security Council meeting on the latest developments in the region.

"This past year has seen continuous and devastating violence across the region. Civilians have suffered on a dreadful scale on both sides of the Blue Line. The explosions in Lebanon this week and Israel’s strike in southern Beirut today are the latest in a deadly cycle of violence, and we are deeply concerned by civilian casualties resulting from those incidents. That children were among them is particularly distressing. Our condolences go to the families of the civilians killed," Kariuki said.

Hezbollah said it launched Katyusha rockets at a north Israel intelligence base it blamed for targeted killings, claiming its first attack after Israel launched a deadly strike on the group's south Beirut stronghold, a day after the group's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah vowed to retaliate against Israel for the device blasts carnage.

The Iran-backed group said its fighters had targeted "the main intelligence headquarters in the northern region responsible for assassinations... with volleys of Katyusha rockets", adding the attack was "in response to the Israeli enemy's attacks" on south Lebanon.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said Hezbollah would “pay an increasing price” as Israel claims to be seeking to make conditions near its border with Lebanon safe enough for residents to return.

"Hezbollah is feeling chased and the sequence of our military operations will continue," Gallant added, in a possible hint that Israel was behind the deadly pager and walkie-talkie blasts that rocked Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday leaving 37 people dead and around 3,000 injured, many of them severely.

Bulgarian authorities said on Friday a company based in Sofia had nothing to do with the delivery of exploding communications devices to Hezbollah.

Hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies detonated across Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people, wounding nearly 3,000 and generating panic.

Israel's army announced new strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Thursday, as warning sirens rang out in northern Israel, indicating possible incoming fire.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday that Israel will receive "just punishment" for the communications device explosions that killed 37 people and wounded nearly 3,000 over two days.

Israel will face "tough retribution and just punishment, where it expects it and where it does not," Nasrallah said in his first speech since the blasts, adding that he would not give further details of the place, timing or nature of Hezbollah's response.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced Thursday that he spoke Wednesday with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant to “review regional security developments and reiterate unwavering U.S. support for Israel in the face of threats from Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, and Iran’s other regional partners.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has held phone talks with Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati over the deadly explosions that rocked Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday.