Israeli warplanes struck Tuesday southern towns deep inside Lebanon, including a town near Sidon, almost 30 kilometers from the nearest Israeli boundary.

The series of airstrikes came shortly after Hezbollah launched a salvo of rockets at the Israeli Meron air control base in retaliation for deadly Israeli strikes on east Lebanon.

Hezbollah's deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem has warned that the group has much more weapons to use if Israel expands the war.

"If the Israelis go too far, we will retaliate more. All what we have used until now in the fighting is the minimum of what we own," he said in a speech Monday in an apparent reference to Hezbollah's huge arsenal including precision-guided missiles and explosive drones.

Hezbollah said it launched a salvo of rockets at an Israeli air control base on Tuesday in retaliation for deadly Israeli strikes on east Lebanon.

Hamas ally Hezbollah has exchanged near-daily fire with the Israeli army since the Gaza war erupted in October, but strikes have been largely restricted to the border area.

Hezbollah fired on Monday a volley of rockets from Lebanon at an Israeli military base in Syria's occupied Golan Heights, in response to Israel's deadly airstrikes in Lebanon's Baalbek.

Two Hezbollah members were killed in the Israeli strikes in the eastern Baalbek area, two security officials in Lebanon and a source close to Hezbollah told AFP.

During a funeral procession for a Hezbollah fighter on Monday, one of the group's lawmakers, Hassan Fadlallah, lambasted the Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon’s eastern district of Baalbek, a Hezbollah bastion near the border with Syria.

The National Moderation parliamentary bloc has launched an initiative aimed at breaking Lebanon’s presidential vote deadlock, amid a “green light” from Speaker Nabih Berri, the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported on Monday.

Berri has asked the Moderation bloc not to use the phrase “dialogue session” so that it does not clash with his initiative, the daily said.

Israeli strikes near the Hezbollah-dominated city of Baalbek killed two group members Monday, two security sources told AFP, in the first strikes on Lebanon's east since clashes began after the Gaza war.

"Two Hezbollah members were killed in the Israeli strikes near Baalbek," a security official told AFP, with another security source also confirming the toll.

An Israeli airstrike targeted Monday a car in the Tyre district town of Majadel, killing at least one person, local rescuers said, without providing further details.

Israeli airstrikes had targeted earlier on Monday other areas deep inside Lebanon including Bouday near the northeastern city of Baalbek and Iqlim al-Tuffah, after Hezbollah shot down a "large" Israeli drone there.

Lebanon will respond next week to a French proposal for halting the Israel-Hezbollah cross-border clashes, caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said on Monday.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said that Israel would increase its strikes on Hezbollah even if a ceasefire is reached in the Gaza Strip.

“We are planning to increase the firepower against Hezbollah, which is unable to find replacements for the commanders we are eliminating,” Gallant said during a visit to the Israeli army’s Northern Command headquarters in Safad.