Beirut, Lebanon - Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon Monday killed at least 100 people, including children, in the largest cross-border aggression since the start of the war on Gaza on October 7.

Israel claimed it had hit more than 300 Hezbollah sites with dozens of strikes, while Hezbollah said that it had targeted three sites in northern Israel in return.

The attacks on Lebanon, which also wounded more than 400 people according to the Lebanese health ministry, were the deadliest in nearly a year of violence along the border with Israel.

"Enemy raids on southern towns and villages since this morning... killed 100 and injured more than 400," the health ministry said in a statement, adding that "children, women and paramedics" were among the dead and wounded.

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World powers have implored Israel and Hezbollah to pull back from the brink of all-out war, with the focus of violence shifting sharply from Israel's destruction of Gaza to its northern border with Lebanon in recent days.

"We sleep and wake up to bombardment... That's what our life has become," said Wafaa Ismail, a woman from the south Lebanon village of Zawtar.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told people in Lebanon to avoid potential targets linked to Hezbollah as strikes would "go on for the near future".

Hagari said Israel's military "will engage in (more) extensive and precise strikes against terror targets which have been embedded widely throughout Lebanon".

He ordered civilians "to immediately move out of harm's way for their own safety".

Ahead of the annual General Assembly in New York, UN chief António Guterres warned of Lebanon becoming "another Gaza" and said it was "clear that both sides are not interested in a ceasefire" there.

Lebanon's official National News Agency reported "more than 80 air strikes in half an hour" early Monday targeting the south of the country, as well as intense raids in the Bekaa Valley to the east.

The education minister said schools in targeted areas would close for two days.

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Explosions around the ancient city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon triggered flashes of fire and sent smoke billowing into the sky.

Residents and local media said strikes also hit the outskirts of the coastal city Tyre.

Lebanese people had also reportedly received phone messages from Israel telling them "to quickly evacuate."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel has dealt "a series of blows on Hezbollah that it could have never imagined," while other Israeli leaders urged the ethnic cleansing of southern Lebanon to create a permanent "buffer zone" or even an outright destruction of the country.

Hezbollah's deputy chief, Naim Qassem, said the group was in a "new phase, namely an open reckoning" with Israel, and ready for "all military possibilities."

Both were speaking after Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel caused damage in the area of Haifa, a major city on Israel's north coast.

Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged the UN and world powers to deter what he called Israel's "plan that aims to destroy Lebanese villages and towns".

US President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel's main weapons supplier, claimed his administration was "going to do everything we can to keep a wider war from breaking out," but has steadfastly refused to reign in its ally at every turn.

An Israeli air strike on Beirut on Friday killed the elite Radwan Force commander, Ibrahim Aqil, along with other commanders and civilians, including children.

That followed coordinated communications device blasts on Tuesday and Wednesday that killed 39 people and wounded almost 3,000, in a suspected Israeli operation that has been slammed as a potential war crime.

The death toll in Israel's large-scale attack on southern Lebanon has skyrocketed, according to the latest update from Lebanon's health ministry.

"Israeli enemy strikes on southern towns and villages since this morning" have killed "182 people and wounded 727 others," officials said, with casualties including "children, women and paramedics."

Al Jazeera reports spoke of panic on the streets of Lebanon, with thousands of residents fleeing the south and schools in Beirut being converted into shelters.

Israel also announced imminent airstrikes on the Bekaa Valley east of Beirut in what appeared to be the opening stage of a catastrophic escalation.

Lebanon's Hezbollah group said it targeted two more Israeli bases on Monday in retaliation for the deadliest strikes on the country's east and south in nearly a year of clashes.

Hezbollah launched "dozens of rockets" at two Israeli bases "in response to the Israeli enemy's attacks on the south and the Bekaa" in Lebanon's east, after targeting three other sites earlier in the day as part of their retaliation.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, meanwhile, warned that further escalation on the Israel-Lebanon border risked having "devastating" regional consequences, as Israel said it hit Hezbollah targets and the group struck back.

"Any further escalation of this dangerous situation could have far-reaching and devastating consequences, not only for those living on both sides of the Blue Line but also for the broader region," the UNIFIL peacekeeping force said in a statement, referring to the demarcation line between Israel and Lebanon.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has accused Israel of seeking a wider conflict, which he said would not benefit anyone, as he insisted Tehran was not destabilizing the region.

"We know more than anyone else that if a larger war were to erupt in the Middle East, it will not benefit anyone throughout the world. It is Israel that seeks to create this wider conflict," he told a roundtable with journalists as he attended the UN General Assembly in New York.

Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said the death toll in Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Monday rose to 274, among them 21 children, while thousands of families fled the bombardment.

The toll was "274 dead, including 21 children and 39 women – that's who we know about until now," Abiad told a news conference, adding that "thousands of families from the targeted areas have been displaced".

The dead also included two rescuers, with 16 other emergency workers wounded, he said, adding that "two ambulances, a fire truck and a medical center were targeted".

The attacks wounded 1,024 people who were treated in 27 hospitals, Abiad said.

About 5,000 people had been wounded "in less than a week" of Israeli attacks, he said, after Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies exploded and an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs.