Israeli strikes have killed at least 773 people since March 2, the Lebanese health ministry said on Friday, as Israel vowed that Lebanon will pay an "increasing price" in damage to infrastructure.

"The total number of martyrs from March 2 to March 13 reached 773, and the number of wounded reached 1,933" including 103 children, the ministry said in its daily update.

President Joseph Aoun said Friday he had not received a response to his offer to negotiate directly with Israel to try to halt its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when Iran-backed Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in U.S.-Israeli strikes.

Israeli planes dropping propaganda leaflets over Beirut on Friday caused a number of loud booms in the sky, terrifying residents of the Lebanese capital.

AFP correspondents heard four successive booms at short intervals, before clouds of paper leaflets appeared high in the air.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Friday the strikes on Lebanon so far were "just the beginning" and warned that Lebanon will suffer increasing damage to its infrastructure, after the Israeli army targeted a bridge over the Litani river that it said Hezbollah had been using as a passageway for its fighters.

"This is just the beginning and the Lebanese government, and the State of Lebanon will pay an increasing price in damage to Lebanese national infrastructure used by Hezbollah terrorists due to terrorist activity and launches at the State of Israel," Katz said at a meeting with army top brass.

The Israeli military said an academic who was killed in a drone strike Thursday in Beirut was a Hezbollah operative.

Prof. Mortada Srour was an expert in the field of weapons manufacturing within the organization, the military said Friday.

Eight people were killed Friday and nine wounded in a strike on Sidon's al-Fawwar, as Israel targeted motorbikes and a Hezbollah-affiliated health center in Safad al-Battikh, kfartebnit and Aiteet.

The Israeli army warned of a strike on a building in Abbasiyyeh-Tyre, and struck and shelled Teffahta, al-Henniyyeh, Qlayle, al-Majadel, Zebqine, Majdal Selem, Sojod, Kfarhamam, Kfarshouba, Rashayya al-Fakhar and Qabrikha in south Lebanon.

The Iranian Chargé d'Affaires in Lebanon, Tawfiq Samadi, appeared Friday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the summons of Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji.

Israel expanded its strikes in Lebanon on Friday, targeting multiple areas including a bridge over the Litani river that it said Hezbollah had been using as a passageway for its fighters.

The raids came after Israel threatened to also carry out a ground operation to disarm Hezbollah if the Lebanese government does not do so.

U.N. chief Antonio Guterres called on Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah to "stop the war" at the start of a visit to Beirut on Friday, as Israel expanded its strikes across the country.

A man with a rifle who crashed into a large Michigan synagogue in what federal officials say was an attack had lost four family members in an Israeli airstrike in his native Lebanon last week, an official said Friday.

Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Lebanon, was killed by security after ramming into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township near Detroit and driving down a hallway in a vehicle that then caught fire, according to authorities.