Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia has fired dozens of rockets at northern Israel, warning that the barrage was its initial response to the killing – presumably by Israel – of a senior Hamas leader in Beirut earlier this week.

The rocket attack came a day after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his group must retaliate for the killing of Saleh Arouri, the deputy political leader of the allied Hamas group.

Mr Nasrallah said that if Hezbollah does not retaliate for Mr Arouri’s killing in its stronghold south of the Lebanese capital, all of Lebanon would be vulnerable to Israeli attack.

He appeared to be making the case for a response to the Lebanese public, even at the risk of escalating the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, but he gave no indication of how or when the militants would act.

Hezbollah said on Saturday that it had launched 62 rockets towards an air surveillance base on Mount Meron and scored direct hits.

The Israeli military said about 40 rockets were fired towards the area of Meron, but made no mention of a base. It said it had struck the cell that fired the rockets.

The escalating cross-border exchanges came as US secretary of state Antony Blinken began a Middle East trip to prevent the Israel-Hamas war, now in its 14th week, from spreading across the region.

He is in Turkey on Saturday for meetings with the country’s president and foreign minister. It is Mr Blinken’s fourth Middle East trip in three months.

International criticism of Israel’s operations in the Gaza Strip has been mounting, while the US is increasingly worried about the end game.

This comes in addition to Washington’s worries about a recent increase in attacks in the Red Sea, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq.