BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel on Saturday, warning that the barrage was likely its first response to the targeted killing of a top leader of the allied Hamas group in the Lebanese capital earlier this week through Israel.

The rocket attack came a day after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his group needed to take revenge for the killing of Saleh Arouri, Hamas’ deputy political leader, in a Hezbollah stronghold south of Beirut. Nasrallah said that if Hezbollah did not strike back, all of Lebanon would be under Israeli attack. He appeared to advocate for a response to the Lebanese public, even at the risk of escalating fighting between Hezbollah and Israel as the war between Israel and Hamas rages on.

Hezbollah said it fired 62 rockets at an Israeli air surveillance base on Mount Meron, scoring direct hits. The group said rockets also hit two army posts near the border. The Israeli military said about 40 rockets were fired at Meron and a base was attacked, but did not mention that the base had been hit. It said it hit the Hezbollah cell that fired the rockets.

Separately, the Islamic group’s armed wing in Lebanon said it fired two volleys of rockets into the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona on Friday evening. Two members of the group were killed in the attack that killed Arouri.

The cross-border escalation came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken embarked on an urgent diplomatic trip to the Middle East, his fourth trip to the region since the Israel-Hamas war broke out three months ago. The war was sparked by a deadly Hamas attack in southern Israel in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages.

In recent weeks, Israel has scaled back its military attacks in the territory’s north and pressed ahead with its heavy offensive in the south, vowing to crush Hamas. In the south, most of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians are being pushed into smaller areas by a humanitarian disaster while they are still hit by Israeli airstrikes.

On Saturday, the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip said 122 Palestinians were killed in the past 24 hours, bringing the total since the start of the war to 22,722. The count does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. According to the ministry, two thirds of those killed were women and children. According to the ministry, the total number of injured rose to 58,166.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in downtown Deir al-Balah received at least 46 bodies overnight, according to hospital records seen by The Associated Press. Many were men who appeared to have been shot. Fighting broke out between Israeli forces and militants in the area. The dead included five members of a family killed in an airstrike, according to records.

Recent leaflets dropped by Israel urged Palestinians in some areas near the hospital to evacuate, citing “dangerous fighting.”

In the southern city of Khan Younis, the focus of Israel’s ground offensive, the local European Hospital received the bodies of 18 people killed in a nighttime airstrike on a house in the Maan district, said Saleh al-Hamms, head of the hospital’s nursing department Hospital. Citing witnesses, he said more than three dozen people had taken refuge in the house, including displaced people.

Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties and says the group has integrated itself into Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. Nevertheless, international criticism of Israel’s behavior in the war has become increasingly persistent due to the increasing number of civilian deaths. The United States has called on Israel to do more to prevent harm to civilians even as it continues to send weapons and ammunition while shielding its close ally from international criticism.

Blinken began his final Middle East trip on Saturday in Turkey. The Biden administration believes Turkey and others can exert influence, particularly on Iran and its proxies, to curb fears of a regional conflagration. These fears have increased in recent days with incidents in the Red Sea, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran.

In talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Blinken asked for Turkish support for nascent plans for the postwar Gaza Strip, which could include cash or in-kind support for reconstruction efforts and some form of participation in a planned multinational force operate in or near the territory.

From Turkey, Blinken traveled to Turkish rival and NATO ally Greece to meet Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at his residence on the Mediterranean island of Crete. Mitsotakis and his government have supported U.S. efforts to prevent the expansion of the Israel-Hamas war and signaled their willingness to help if the situation worsens.

Further stops on the trip include Jordan, followed on Sunday and Monday by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Blinken will visit Israel and the West Bank next week before concluding the trip in Egypt.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief said during a visit to Beirut that he wanted to launch a European-Arab initiative to revive a peace process that would lead to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Josep Borrell said he would visit Saudi Arabia on Sunday.

“The only way is to create a Palestinian state that offers Palestinians a horizon of hope,” he said.

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Magdy reported from Cairo and Jobain from Rafah in the Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Istanbul and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

___ For more AP coverage, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war