More than 200 people, including women and children, were killed Monday and more than 1000 were wounded as the Israeli military said it had targeted more than 300 Hezbollah sites in Lebanon in an unprecedented wave of air strikes.

"So far more than 300 Hezbollah sites have been targeted" since Monday morning, the military said in a statement. It earlier said more than 150 air strikes were carried out within just one hour, between 6:30 am and 7:30 am.

Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem has said his group was in a "new phase" in its battle against Israel, which it has waged from across the Lebanese border since the Gaza war erupted.

"We have entered a new phase, namely an open reckoning" with Israel, Qassem said Sunday at the funeral ceremony of a senior Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli strike on Friday.

Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon turned out in force Sunday for the funeral of a top commander killed in an Israeli air strike, in a major show of support for the Iran-backed group.

Hezbollah has hailed commander Ibrahim Akil as "one of its great leaders", saying the 61-year-old died in an "Israeli assassination... in Beirut's southern suburbs" on Friday.

Israelis inspected air raid shelters and stocked up on groceries Sunday after Hezbollah rocket fire threatened northern cities.

Ilan Ravor, a 76-year-old retiree, ducked into a public shelter near his home in Haifa, Israel's third-largest city located about 30 kilometers from the border with Lebanon.

For almost a week, ophthalmologist Elias Jradeh has worked around the clock, trying to keep up with the flood of patients whose eyes were injured when pagers and walkie-talkies exploded en masse across Lebanon.

He has lost track of how many eye operations he has performed in multiple hospitals, surviving on two hours of sleep before starting on the next operation. He has managed to save some patients' sight, but many will never see again.

China urged Monday its citizens in Lebanon and Israel to evacuate or move to safe areas as the conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah is escalating.

Chinese citizens in Lebanon should take commercial flights to return to China or otherwise leave Lebanon as soon as possible for their own safety, the Consular Department of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement posted on social media platform WeChat.

Israel and Hezbollah have threatened to escalate their cross-border attacks despite a chorus of international calls for both sides to step back from the brink of all-out war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after intense rocket fire from Lebanon that Israel has dealt "a series of blows on Hezbollah that it could have never imagined".

Dozens of Israeli air strikes hit Lebanon's south and east Monday, killing at least one civilian, official media reported, as Israel's military warned Lebanese to move away from Hezbollah targets.

The official National News Agency (NNA) said "enemy warplanes launched... more than 80 air strikes in half an hour", targeting south Lebanon's Nabatiyeh district. It also reported strikes in the Tyre area.

Lebanese official media said Monday people were receiving Israeli phone warnings telling them to evacuate, and Information Minister Ziad Makari's office told AFP it had received one of the calls.

"Citizens in Beirut and a number of areas are receiving landline telephone warning messages whose source is the Israeli enemy, asking them to quickly evacuate where they are," the Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) said.

Lebanon's health ministry said three people were killed in separate Israeli strikes on south Lebanon on Sunday, as Israel said it was striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.

In separate statements, the health ministry said one person was killed in Israeli strikes in three different south Lebanon villages.