Star Metro - Deadly Israeli strikes pound south, east Lebanon

Lebanon's health ministry raised the overall toll in the war since March 2 to 3,123 killed.

It said two people including a paramedic from the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee were killed on Sunday in Israeli raids.

A day earlier 11 people including six women and a child were killed in a single strike in the south's Sir al-Gharbiyeh, the ministry said Sunday, decrying a "massacre".

Israel's military has continued to hit what it says are Hezbollah targets in Lebanon despite a ceasefire in the country that began on April 17 and that was recently extended for several weeks.

The Iran-backed group has also maintained attacks on Israeli troops who have invaded southern Lebanon, as well as targets across the border, claiming more than 20 such attacks on Sunday including with rockets, attack drones and artillery.

Iran has indicated that an understanding with Washington to halt the regional war would include Lebanon, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday US President Donald Trump had reaffirmed his support for Israel's right "to defend itself against threats on all fronts, including in Lebanon".

Israeli military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said that "we continue to strike Hezbollah across all dimensions... the security of civilians and the safety of our forces remain paramount", a statement said.

Lebanon's official National News Agency reported Israeli airstrikes on more than 30 locations in south and east Lebanon on Sunday, some causing casualties.

AFP correspondents saw large clouds of smoke after strikes in several places.

Israel's military issued evacuation warnings for more than a dozen villages in Lebanon's south and the eastern Bekaa valley.

Lebanon's civil defence agency said its regional facility in Nabatieh had been destroyed by an overnight Israeli strike.

An AFP photographer saw civil defence personnel recovering equipment from the rubble.

Israel's military did not provide any comment on the strike in response to an inquiry from AFP's Jerusalem bureau.

- 'Don't stab us in the back' -

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said that "God willing, this agreement (between the US and Iran) will be finalised... and accordingly that we too will be among those included in this agreement" on a full cessation of hostilities.

He again repeated his group's rejection of direct talks between Israel and Lebanon.

Lebanese authorities recently began landmark direct talks with Israel under US auspices, and are preparing for a fourth round in early June, preceded by a meeting between military delegations at the Pentagon on May 29.

"Abandon the direct negotiations... Don't be with them and stab us in the back," Qassem said.

He also said that "disarmament is annihilation and we cannot accept it", adding that "we and our people face an existential threat."

"We will not bow, even if the whole world turns against us."

After Qassem's speech, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Hezbollah of trying to plunge Lebanon "back into chaos".

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war on March 2 with rocket fire at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes.

Under the terms of the ceasefire published by Washington, Israel reserves the right to act against "planned, imminent or ongoing attacks".

Israeli troops who invaded Lebanon are also operating inside an Israeli-announced "yellow line" running around 10 kilometres (six miles) deep along Lebanon's southern border.

P.Graham--SMC