Live updates: Middle East crisis

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken left for the Middle East Monday on a new push for an elusive Gaza ceasefire two weeks before US elections, seeing a new opportunity from Israel’s killing of Hamas’s leader.

Blinken’s trip comes days after he and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Israel that the United States could withhold some of its billions of dollars in military aid unless more humanitarian assistance is allowed into Gaza, where the UN warns more than 1.8 million people are facing extreme hunger.

Blinken flies first to Israel and then will tour other countries in the Middle East through Friday.

An official on the plane with him said Blinken will visit Jordan on Wednesday and discuss humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip.

Blinken "will discuss the importance of bringing the war in Gaza to an end, securing the release of all hostages and alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people," a State Department statement said.

It said Blinken would also discuss post-war arrangements critical for a peace deal and seek a "diplomatic resolution" in Lebanon, where the United States has stopped short of urging an immediate ceasefire.

The Israeli army said Monday that the latest commander responsible for funding the Lebanese Hezbollah group was "eliminated" in Syria.

The man, whose name was not released, headed the Iran-backed Hezbollah’s Unit 4400 that is "responsible for the transfers and the amount of funds" to the group through Tehran’s oil sales, army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a statement.

The commander was "eliminated" in Syria "a few hours ago", he added.

The unit was previously led by Mohammed Jafar Ksir, also known as Sheikh Salah, Hagari said.

"He managed the terrorist organisation’s main source of income for years, until we eliminated him in a targeted attack on the capital (Beirut) in early October," he said.

Lebanese state-run media reported 13 strikes on Monday evening on Beirut’s southern suburbs, a main Hezbollah bastion, in one of the most intense nights of Israeli attacks in weeks.

"Thirteen strikes have been launched so far by Israeli warplanes on the southern suburbs of Beirut," the National News Agency said.

Lebanon’s health ministry said four people including a child had been killed on Monday evening in Israeli strikes near the country’s biggest public hospital close to the southern suburbs of Beirut.

"The Israeli enemy strike near the Hariri Hospital killed, in a preliminary toll, four people, including a child, and injured 24," the ministry said, adding it had caused "significant damage to the hospital".

At least three people have been killed and tens of others injured following an Israeli strike on a Beirut neighborhood near the capital's main government hospital, a senior security source told Reuters on Monday.

A strike hit near Beirut's Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut late on Monday, a hospital source told Reuters, adding that it appeared the strike hit the hospital's parking lot.

US President Joe Biden has signaled "tacit approval and explicit support for Israel's unlawful military aggression against Iran," Iran's mission to the United Nations said on Monday, citing remarks by Biden in Germany last week.

"The United States will bear full responsibility for its role in instigating, inciting and enabling any acts of aggression by Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran ... as well as for the catastrophic consequences on regional and international peace and security," Iran's UN mission said in a letter to the UN Security Council.

Biden, on a visit to Berlin, also told reporters he has an understanding of how and when Israel will respond to the missile attacks by Iran. He declined to elaborate.

The Israeli army said Monday its forces were pummelling Hezbollah’s financial arm, hitting more than two dozen targets including a bunker with tens of millions of dollars in cash and gold.

"The Israeli Air Force carried out a series of precise strikes on these Hezbollah financial strongholds," military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a televised briefing.

"One of our main targets last night was an underground vault with tens of millions of dollars in cash and gold. The money was being used to finance Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel."

He did not specify whether all of the money was destroyed by the strike.

Hagari then referenced a separate bunker also allegedly filled with cash and gold under a hospital in the capital Beirut, but said the vault had not been targeted yet by the Israeli military.

"According to the estimates we have, there is at least half a billion dollars in dollar bills and gold stored in this bunker," Hagari said.

"This money could and still can be used to rebuild the state of Lebanon."

Lebanon's Sahel Hospital in southern suburbs being evacuated after Israel claimed Hezbollah's cash bunker sits below it, Director Fadi Alameh says.

Alameh denies Israeli claims, calls on Lebanese army to visit. 

Israel's military spokesman said on Monday that Israeli forces had struck a launcher responsible for firing a projectile from Lebanon that landed in central Israel without activating air sirens.

While Hezbollah did not directly comment on the incident, statements released from the group throughout the day indicated that they had launched at least 30 strikes targeting Israeli military positions in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.