BEIRUT: Lebanese leaders urged the US ambassador to Beirut to pressure Israel to halt its attacks as it pounded the country from the air on Monday despite a truce in the Israel-Hezbollah war.
Lebanese authorities on Monday also raised the overall death toll from Israeli strikes since March 2 to 2,869 people.
That toll includes dozens killed since the truce went into force on April 17.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam met separately with ambassador Michel Issa in preparation for a third direct meeting between Lebanese and Israeli representatives set to take place in Washington on Thursday and Friday.
Salam said he asked Issa to "exert pressure on Israel to stop the ongoing attacks and violations, in order to consolidate the ceasefire".
The appeal followed a weekend of intense Israeli strikes that stretched beyond the country's south and reached as close as 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the capital Beirut.
The Israeli military on Monday issued an evacuation warning for nine Lebanese towns, seven of them in the south and two in the West Bekaa region in the east.
Israel and Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah have been trading fire in southern Lebanon despite a ceasefire in place since April 17 between Israel and Lebanon that aimed to halt the fighting.
AFP correspondents witnessed strikes across the south, with large plumes of smoke rising from the targeted locations.
Israel's military said earlier on Monday that one of its soldiers had died in fighting near the border with Lebanon, bringing its losses to 18 personnel and a civilian contractor since the start of the war.
Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the wider Middle East war on March 2 when it launched rockets at Israel to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes.
Israel responded with airstrikes and a ground invasion. Its troops are operating inside an Israeli-declared "yellow line" that runs around 10 kilometres (six miles) north of Lebanon's border.
In an interview with Saudi Arabia's Al Arabiya channel on Sunday, Salam said the country is "facing the occupation of 68 Lebanese villages as a result of this war that was imposed on us".
