The escalation of fighting in the town comes as Israeli and Lebanese officials hold talks in Washington later on Tuesday to end the war.

According to the military, Israeli troops have now fully surrounded the town, marking a notable advance in their ongoing ground offensive in southern Lebanon.

Fighting in recent days has involved close-quarters, "face-to-face" engagements between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters, the military said.

"Overnight, three IDF soldiers were severely injured, and an additional soldier was moderately injured in a close-quarters encounter" in Bint Jbeil, it said.

"In the incident, six additional soldiers were lightly injured," the military added.

On Monday, the military said its forces killed more than 100 Hezbollah fighters in and around the town over the past few days.

Just five kilometres (three miles) from the Israeli border, Bint Jbeil has long been both a symbolic and strategic flashpoint in confrontations between Israeli forces and Hezbollah.

It was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting during the 2006 war, when Hezbollah's resistance there became central to the group's narrative of defiance.

It was from the stadium in Bint Jbeil in 2000 that the group's former chief Hassan Nasrallah delivered his "Liberation" speech following Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.

The escalation in Bint Jbeil comes as diplomatic efforts to contain the cross?border fighting have intensified over the past few days.

Israeli and Lebanese officials are set to hold talks on Tuesday in Washington in an effort to end the war.

Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said ahead of the talks that his country is seeking "peace and normalisation".

"Israel and Lebanon don't have any major disputes between them. The problem is Hezbollah," Saar said at a press conference.

Lebanon was pulled into the wider Middle East war when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel after US-Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei on February 28.

Israel responded with massive strikes in Lebanon and a ground invasion.