An emergency worker picks up suspected body parts and puts them into a plastic bag as a member of the Lebanese civil defense searches for human remains in the rubble of a residential building where eight people were killed in an early-morning Israeli airstrike in the Lebanese village of Aramoun on Nov. 13. (Ed Ram for The Washington Post)

A senior U.S. mediator said on Tuesday there was a "real opportunity" to end the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and that gaps were narrowing, signalling progress in Washington's efforts to clinch a ceasefire.

U.S. envoy Amos Hoschtein said Tuesday "a real opportunity" to end the Israel-Hezbollah conflict is "now within our grasp," but both parties need to make the decision.

An Israeli airstrike killed five people in central Beirut on Monday, Lebanon's health ministry said, the second day in a row Israel has hit a target within the capital as it presses its campaign against Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.

The spokesperson of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Mohammed Afif, was killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut on Sunday.

A rare Israeli airstrike on central Beirut killed Hezbollah's chief spokesman on Sunday, an official with the militant group said.View on euronews

US Middle East mediator Amos Hochstein arrived in Beirut on Tuesday in hopes of finalizing a ceasefire agreement that would end the war between Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group.