The United States, Israel's closest ally, on Tuesday said it opposed the scope of the country's air strikes in Beirut over the past few weeks amid a rising death toll and fears of wider escalation involving Iran, Paralel.Az reports citing Reuters.

Israeli military evacuation orders were also affecting more than a quarter of Lebanon, according to the U.N. refugee agency, two weeks after Israel began incursions into the south of the country that it says are aimed at pushing back Hezbollah.

Some Western countries have been pushing for a ceasefire between the two neighbours, as well as in Gaza, though the United States says it continues to support Israel and was sending an anti-missile system and troops.

On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the U.S. had expressed its concerns to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's administration on the recent strikes.

"When it comes to the scope and nature of the bombing campaign that we saw in Beirut over the past few weeks, it's something that we made clear to the government of Israel we had concerns with and we were opposed to," he told reporters, adopting a harsher tone than Washington has taken so far.

Separately, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin wrote to Israeli officials on Sunday demanding concrete measures to address the worsening situation in Gaza and telling them to take specific actions within 30 days, U.S. officials said.

Israel has been turning up the heat on Hezbollah since it began incursions into Lebanon after killing Hezbollah leaders and commanders, including its veteran secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah last month in the biggest blow to the group in decades.