BEIRUT — Israel launched dozens of intense airstrikes across Lebanon’s northeastern farming villages on Friday, killing at least 52 people and wounding scores more, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported.

In central Gaza, Palestinians recovered the bodies of 25 people killed in a barrage of Israeli aerial attacks that began Thursday, hospital officials said.

The latest violence comes against the backdrop of the Biden administration’s renewed diplomatic push, days before the U.S. election, to reach temporary cease-fire deals. Israel has stepped up its offensive against Hamas’ remaining fighters in Gaza, pulverizing areas in the north and raising fears of worsening humanitarian conditions for civilians still there.

In Lebanon, Israel in recent weeks has broadened its strikes to bigger urban hubs, like the town of Baalbek, home to 80,000 people, after initially targeting smaller border villages in the south, where Hezbollah conducts operations. Iran-backed Hezbollah doubles as a major political party and provider of social services in Lebanon.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones and missiles from Lebanon into Israel in solidarity with Hamas immediately after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza. The yearlong cross-border fighting boiled over to full-blown war on Oct. 1, when Israeli forces launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon for the first time since 2006.

In Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley — where small villages, olive groves and wineries nestled between the country’s mountain ranges had largely been spared the worst of Israeli bombardment until last month — Israel conducted a series of heavy airstrikes Friday, killing at least 52 people, driving more families to flee with whatever they could carry and sending thick plumes of smoke over the horizon.

Intensified Israeli airstrikes on and around the northeastern city of Baalbek after Israel issued evacuation orders this week have prompted 60,000 people to flee, emptying nearby villages, said Hussein Haj Hassan, a Lebanese lawmaker representing the region.

Rescuers searched for survivors after airstrikes killed nine people and brought down a building that had housed 20 people in the town of Younine. Further Israeli strikes killed 12 people in the town of Amhaz and 31 others across at least a dozen villages in Lebanon’s northeast, bringing the total death toll to 52, the Health Ministry said. The bombardment left 72 people wounded, the ministry added.

There was no immediate comment from Israel on the deadly strikes.

In Lebanon’s capital, Israeli planes pounded the southern suburb of Dahiyeh overnight and early Friday for the first time in four days, spreading panic after a rare lull. The Israeli military, which warned residents to evacuate at least nine locations in Dahiyeh, said it hit Hezbollah weapons manufacturing sites and command centers.

There were no reports of casualties from Dahiyeh, where fears of Israeli bombings drive a mass outflow of residents each night.

Bulldozers rumbled through clouds of dust and smoke Friday, clearing rubble from the pulverized roads where Israeli warplanes had reduced dozens of buildings to their skeletal remains.

Formerly home to families and businesses, mid-rise apartment blocks were left open to the breeze, walls blown off and furniture buried. Hezbollah supporters in several locations raised the group’s bright yellow banner atop the rubble.

Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted last year, more than 2,897 people have been killed and 13,150 wounded in Lebanon, the Health Ministry reports, not including Friday’s rising toll. Health authorities say that a quarter of those killed were women and children.