A woman flashes the V-sign as she rides in the back of a van laden with mattresses, as civilians flee their homes and head north toward the Lebanese capital, hours after a military escalation that included Israeli airstrikes targeting the south. AFP
Israeli strikes have killed at least 40 people and wounded tens of others in Lebanon since the truce between Israel and Lebanon began on 17 April.
Lebanese state media reported Israeli airstrikes in multiple locations in south Lebanon, including around a dozen sites in the evening.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah said its fighters launched several attacks on Israeli troops, including on an army bulldozer that it said was demolishing homes in the border town of Bint Jbeil.
The Israeli occupation army claimed it struck more than 20 Hezbollah "infrastructure sites" in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and the country's south on Monday.
Since 2 March, the Israeli strikes on Lebanon have killed 2,521 and wounded around 8,000 others, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
The toll includes 277 women, 177 children, 100 medics, and several journalists. Israeli strikes have also demolished nearly 70,000 housing units and tens of villages, leaving hundreds of thousands without shelter.
The Israeli occupation army who invaded south Lebanon after the war erupted on 2 March, is operating inside an Israeli-announced "yellow line," a ribbon of Lebanese territory around 10 kilometres (six miles) deep along the border, where Lebanese have been warned not to return.
In a statement on Monday, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said direct talks with Israel sought to end the Israeli war in Lebanon and that those who dragged Lebanon into it were the ones committing "treason" -- in a direct jab at Hezbollah, which has refused to lay down its arms despite a government ban on all its military activities.
"My goal is to reach an end to the state of war with Israel, similar to the armistice agreement" of 1949, signed after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, stressed the Lebanese president.
"I assure you that I will not accept reaching a humiliating agreement," said Aoun.
Israeli and Lebanese representatives met twice in Washington this month, the first such meetings in decades, for discussions that Hezbollah has categorically rejected.
After the first talks, US President Donald Trump announced a 10-day ceasefire that began on 17 April and a three-week extension after the second round.
Earlier, Hezbollah's chief Naim Qassem sharply criticized the government, branding direct negotiations with Israel a "grave sin".
"We categorically reject direct negotiations with Israel, and those in power should know that their actions will not benefit Lebanon or themselves," Qassem said in a statement.
He urged authorities to "back down from their grave sin that is putting Lebanon in a spiral of instability".
The government "cannot continue while it is neglecting Lebanon's rights, giving up land, and confronting" those resisting Israel, he said.
"We will not give up our weapons... and the Israeli enemy will not remain on a single inch of our occupied land."
On Monday, President Aoun said that "what we are doing is not treason. Rather, treason is committed by those who take their country to war to achieve foreign interests".
"Some want to hold us accountable over the decision to go to negotiations because there is no national consensus" over the talks, Aoun said.
"My question to them is: when you went to war, did you first obtain national consensus?"
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