Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said Wednesday that negotiating with Israel under fire would amount to "surrender" for Lebanon, as Israel launched new strikes and Hezbollah said it was targeting Israeli troops.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that "the Gaza model must not be replicated in Lebanon", a comparison previously drawn by Israel officials talking about operations in Lebanon.
"Hezbollah must stop launching attacks into Israel. And Israel must stop its military operations and strikes in Lebanon, which are hitting civilians the hardest," Guterres told reporters at the United Nations.
Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war when Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
"When negotiations with the Israeli enemy are proposed under fire, this is an imposition of surrender," Qassem said, as the pro-Iran group announced attacks on Israeli soldiers in south Lebanon, northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.
Lebanon's president is calling for unprecedented direct negotiations with Israel, which has so far rebuffed his proposal.
Israel, which occupied southern Lebanon for around two decades until 2000, has sent ground troops into the south since the latest bout of fighting began.
On Tuesday, Israel said its military would take control of the border area up to the Litani River, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the frontier.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli strikes and artillery shelling in several locations in the south on Wednesday.
It also said that "enemy warplanes... launched a strike" on Beirut's southern suburbs, after a renewed Israeli army evacuation warning.
An AFP correspondent saw a street covered in debris including shattered cement and warped metal after the early morning strike, while an apartment building's upper floors appeared damaged.
The area has been targeted multiple times during the conflict and is largely empty of residents, who have fled.
Israel's military said it struck Hezbollah targets across Lebanon overnight "including a command center" in Beirut's southern suburbs.
It also said it attacked petrol stations belonging to the Al-Amana fuel company, which it says is controlled by Hezbollah and finances the group.
- Paramedics killed -
Lebanon's health ministry said on Wednesday that two paramedics were killed when an Israeli strike "targeted their motorbike as they headed to carry out a rescue mission in the city of Nabatieh" in the south on Tuesday.
The ministry condemned the strike on the pair, saying they wore full rescue workers' uniforms and the motorbike was also marked for emergency response.
According to the ministry, 42 health workers are among more than 1,000 people killed in Lebanon in more than three weeks of Israeli strikes.
Lebanese authorities say upwards of one million people have been displaced.
Hezbollah said its fighters on Wednesday targeted Israeli troops "massed in the border towns of Naqoura and Qawzah" and in sites across the border "with more than 100 rockets".
The statement came as the group claimed a series of attacks on Israeli troops in south Lebanon and northern Israel.
Israel's military in an earlier statement said ground troops in southern Lebanon had "dismantled a weapons storage facility", and the air force killed "several terrorists".
It also said troops had "dismantled Hezbollah command centers in which numerous weapons were located", without specifying where.
Lebanese authorities reported deadly Israeli strikes on the south on Tuesday, including a raid that killed two people in the Mieh Mieh Palestinian refugee camp.
On Tuesday in northern Israel, where repeated air raid warnings have sent residents to shelters, a woman was killed following rocket fire from Lebanon, authorities said.
