Lebanon's Iran-aligned Hezbollah group confirmed in the early hours of Saturday that its top military commander Ibrahim Aqil was killed, calling him "one of its top leaders", without providing further details on his killing.

Israel says it has carried out an airstrike that killed a senior Hezbollah military official in a densely populated southern neighborhood of the Lebanese capital.

The airstrike follows a deadly week of attacks that have intensified nearly a year of fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah.