JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met visiting US officials on Thursday to discuss a possible deal to end Israel's campaign against Hizbollah in Lebanon, as the death toll mounted on both sides of the border.

Netanyahu told Washington envoys Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk that any Lebanon deal must guarantee Israel's longer term scrutiny.

While their talks took place, Israeli medics and a local leader reported seven Israelis killed by cross-border fire from Lebanon – one of the highest one-day tolls in Israel in more than a year of cross-border exchanges of fire that escalated to full-scale war last month.

There were also Israeli strikes in several areas of southern and eastern Lebanon and in Gaza, scene of a year-long parallel war with the Palestinian armed group Hamas.

"The prime minister specified that the main issue is not paperwork for this or that deal, but Israel's determination and capacity to ensure the deal's application and to prevent any threat to its security from Lebanon," Netanyahu's office said, after the meeting.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant also met the envoys for a separate discussion.

In a statement, he said the talks focused on "security arrangements as these relate to the northern arena and Lebanon, and efforts to ensure the return of 101 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza."

Israeli emergency services said a rocket launched from Lebanon killed two people in an olive grove in the north of the country.

The regional council head in the town of Metula said a local farmer and four foreign farm workers were killed in another incident. The foreigners' nationality was not immediately available.

The death toll since late September has soared on the Lebanese side of the border and on Thursday the country's health ministry said Israeli strikes on three locations in south Lebanon had killed six rescuers affiliated with Hizbollah or its ally Amal.

On Wednesday, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati expressed optimism about a ceasefire in "the coming hours or days."

According to Israeli media reports citing government sources, the plan brokered by the US team would see Hizbollah forces retreat around 20 miles (30 kilometres) from the border, north of the Litani river.

Israeli forces would withdraw from Lebanon and the Lebanese army would then take charge of the border, alongside UN peacekeepers.

Lebanon would be responsible for preventing Hizbollah from rearming itself with imported weapons, and Israel would retain its rights under international law to act in self-defence.

The American visit came as Hamas rejected separate truce plans proposed for the fighting in Gaza.

Mediators seeking to broker a Gaza ceasefire are expected to propose a truce of "less than a month" to Hamas, a source with knowledge of the talks told AFP on Wednesday.

The proposal involves exchanging Israeli hostages for Palestinians in Israeli prisons and increasing aid to Gaza, the source added.

United States, Egyptian and Qatari mediators have long been trying to secure a truce and hostage-prisoner exchange in the Gaza war.

But on Thursday, senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP that the group rejected the idea of a short-term pause.

"The idea of a temporary pause in the war, only to resume aggression later, is something we have already expressed our position on. Hamas supports a permanent end to the war, not a temporary one," Nunu said.

Any deal to stabilise Israel's front with Lebanon is likely to come first.

On Thursday, Israel pressed its onslaught against Iran-backed Hizbollah in Lebanon, which analysts say has put it in a position of strength to strike a deal.

The Israeli military issued an evacuation call for civilians in several areas of Lebanon, including the Palestinian refugee camp of Rashidieh and, later, the eastern city of Baalbek.

Previous such warnings have been swiftly followed by deadly air strikes, and Lebanese state media reported several bombings near the coastal city of Tyre shortly after an evacuation call there.

Syrian state media and a war monitor reported that Israel had carried out a strike across Lebanon's border in the Qusayr area.

Three people were killed, according to the Britain-based monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, when the attack hit "a weapons depot and a fuel storage facility for Hizbollah in the industrial city of Qusayr."

Hizbollah named Naim Qassem as its new leader on Tuesday, following the assassination of his predecessor Hassan Nasrallah by Israel in a massive air strike last month.

In his first speech since taking over, Qassem said Hizbollah – whose other top leaders have also been killed – could continue to resist Israeli air and ground attacks in Lebanon for months.

But he also opened the door to a negotiated truce.

"If the Israelis decide that they want to stop the aggression, we say we accept, but under the conditions that we see as appropriate and suitable," he said.

Fighting in Lebanon escalated after nearly a year of tit-for-tat cross border exchanges which Hizbollah said were an act of support for Hamas. Since Sept 23, the war has killed at least 1,754 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures.

The United Nations children's agency UNICEF said on Thursday that the war has caused the death of a least one child per day and wounded an average of 10 since Oct 4.

Israel's military says 37 soldiers in Lebanon have been killed since ground operations began on Sept 30.

In Gaza, AFP journalists and local authorities confirmed more strikes, and the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory reported 41 deaths over 24 hours.

Hamas' attack on Israel last year resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory bombardment and ground war has killed 43,204 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to data from the health ministry, figures the United Nations considers reliable.

 - AFP