India, May 26 -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said he had ordered the country's military to step up strikes on Hezbollah sites in Lebanon, while vowing to "crush" the group.

"I have ordered an even greater acceleration of our operations," Netanyahu said in a video statement posted on his Telegram channel, wherein he accused Hezbollah of targeting Israeli forces with drone strikes.

"It is true that they are attacking us with drones, including fibre-optic drones, but we have teams working on countermeasures and we will solve this issue... We will intensify our blows, increase our firepower, and we will crush them," AFP cited Netanyahu as saying in the statement.

The Israeli military targeted sites it said belonged ...