Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said his country's military would occupy a swathe of southern Lebanon even after the current war against Hezbollah has ended.

This was not the first Israeli declaration signalling an intention to occupy parts of the south, but it was the clearest since the Middle East war spread to Lebanon on March 2.

It prompted a denunciation from Lebanese Defence Minister Michel Menassa, who said the plans were "a deepening of the aggression" against his country.

Tehran-backed Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the war by launching attacks on Israel to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israel has responded with broad strikes across Lebanon and a ground offensive.

Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney denounced Israel's deployment of troops against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon as an "illegal invasion" that violates its "integrity and sovereignty".

Fresh Israeli strikes hit the country's south and near Beirut on Tuesday, the state-run National News Agency said.

One strike hit a building next to Beirut's main airport road after Israel's military warned it would strike a "Hezbollah facility" there.

The road is the main means of accessing the country's only international passenger facility.

AFPTV images showed plumes of smoke rising from the site on the edge of Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah bastion that has largely emptied of residents since the latest hostilities erupted, and where Israel said it struck Hezbollah "infrastructure" earlier in the day.

- 'Security zone' -

The NNA also said an Israeli strike hit Christian-majority suburb of Mansourieh outside Beirut without warning, the first attack there since the war erupted.

Residents said they heard an explosion and saw black smoke rise from the area, while an AFP correspondent saw a hole in the ground and damaged vehicles showered with soil.

In the south, strikes killed at least eight people, one of them a paramedic, and wounded more than 30, according to the ministry of health.

Israel's Katz said that "at the end of the operation, the IDF (military) will establish itself in a security zone inside Lebanon... and will maintain security control over the entire area up to the Litani" River, which flows around 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border.

He also said the return of hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese would be "completely prevented" until northern Israel's security was ensured.

"All the houses in the villages adjacent to the border in Lebanon will be demolished... to remove once and for all the border-adjacent threats from the residents of the north," he added.

In response, Menassa said Katz's remarks were "no longer mere threats, but reflect a clear intention to impose a new occupation of Lebanese territory, forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of citizens, and systematically destroy villages and towns in the South."

Lebanese authorities say the hostilities have so far killed more than 1,200 people and displaced more than one million others.

Hezbollah has been claiming dozens of attacks against Israeli targets, and said Tuesday that its fighters clashed with soldiers in south Lebanon's Ainata, around four kilometres from the border.

It also said its fighters attacked Israeli soldiers who attempted to advance towards the town of Bint Jbeil, as well as "a senior Israeli army leadership convoy" near the frontier.

In successive statements on Tuesday evening, the group announced a wave of rocket and missile attacks on northern Israel.

- Security Council meeting -

The UN Security Council was meeting on Tuesday following the deaths in recent days of three Indonesian peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in two incidents in the country's south.

A UN security source told AFP that Israeli fire had killed one peacekeeper on Sunday, while a mine may have caused Monday's deadly blast.

Israel's military said it was investigating the incidents to "determine whether they resulted from Hezbollah activity or from IDF activity".

In a joint statement, 10 European countries including France and Britain urged all sides to ensure UNIFIL's safety.

UN aid chief Tom Fletcher told the Security Council that south Lebanon could become another occupied territory in the Middle East.

"Given the trajectory that some Israeli ministers have described and given what we have seen in plain sight in Gaza, how will you protect civilians?" he asked.