The conflict along Israel’s northern border escalated into all-out war last month when Israel launched a wave of heavy airstrikes in Lebanon that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his deputies . Israeli ground forces pushed into southern Lebanon on 1 October. Over the past year, Israel’s extended campaign against Hezbollah has killed 2,800 people in Lebanon, wounded nearly 13,000 and devastated Lebanese towns near the border.

On Thursday, shells from Lebanon crashed into an agricultural area in Metula, Israel’s northernmost city, killing four foreign workers and an Israeli farmer in the deadliest such attack since Israel launched its ground invasion.

The residents of Metula were evacuated in October 2023, and only security officials and agricultural workers remained.

The Refugee and Migrant Hotline, an Israeli organization that advocates for foreign workers, said authorities had put them at risk by allowing them to work along the border without adequate protection.

Hours later, the Israeli military reported another salvo of about 25 rockets crossed into Israel from Lebanon, hitting an olive grove in a suburb of the northern port city of Haifa.

Thursday’s second barrage killed a 30-year-old man and a 60-year-old woman, Magen David Adom, Israel’s main emergency medical organization, said, and injured two others. Israeli media reported that the victims had gathered to harvest olives at the time of the attack.

The agricultural areas along the border with Israel, where much of the country’s orchards are located, are closed military zones, patrolled by Israeli troops, which cannot be entered without official permission. For the area’s few remaining residents, the sound of missile interceptions by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system and the constant wail of sirens warning of rocket fire punctuate daily life.

Newly appointed Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Kassem said in a video statement on Wednesday that the militant group will continue to fight Israel until it is offered ceasefire terms it deems acceptable. He said he had recovered from a series of setbacks in recent months, including attacks that used explosive pagers and walkie-talkies that were widely blamed on Israel.

“Hezbollah’s capabilities are still available and compatible with a long war,” he said.

Earlier on Thursday, the Israeli military warned people to evacuate from several areas in southern Lebanon as airstrikes in different parts of the country killed eight people, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.

Thousands of people have fled Baalbek, the main city in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, and surrounding areas in the past 24 hours following Israeli warnings to evacuate.

Jean Fakhry, a local official in the Bekaa Valley’s Deir al-Ahmar region, said Israeli airstrikes that hit the area had turned the main highway into “a parking lot” of fleeing cars stuck in traffic. About 12,000 displaced people remain in the area, he said, most taking refuge in private homes.

At one of the shelters in Deir al-Ahmar, families with luggage were still arriving on Thursday.

“Our houses were destroyed,” said Zahraa Younis, from the village near Baalbek. “We came with nothing—no clothes or anything.”

For US negotiators visiting the Middle East, the talks represent a last diplomatic push before the US election, although hope was not high for quick deals to end the fighting. CIA Director William Burns, the US’s top negotiator, met in Cairo on Thursday with officials, including Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi. At the same time, President Biden’s Middle East coordinator, Brett McGurk, and his de facto envoy for the conflict with Hezbollah, Amos Hochstein, held talks in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister.

Officials briefed on Israel’s domestic thinking, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, said Netanyahu was waiting to see the results of the election before committing to a diplomatic path. And Hamas has rejected proposals for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, saying it would only consider a permanent end to the fighting.

Also on Thursday, two senior Iranian officials said Iran plans to retaliate against Israel’s recent attacks, according to Iranian media, threatening to continue a cycle of retaliation between the countries.

“Iran’s response to Zionist aggression is definite,” said General Ali Fadavi, deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, according to Iranian media. “I have never left an attack unanswered in 40 years. We are capable of destroying everything the Zionists possess in one operation.”

Fadavi’s remarks, made to Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen television station, were the first statement by an Iranian official to indicate that Iran plans to retaliate against Israel’s Oct. 26 strikes on its territory. The escalating cycle of direct attacks between Iran and Israel over the past six months has brought the region to the brink of all-out war, but neither side appears to be stopping.

This report used material from The New York Times.