The southern border town of Kfarshuba said a municipal councillor and employee had been released, hours after Israel's army said it had "apprehended" two people who approached its soldiers.

Neither Israel nor Hezbollah has observed an April ceasefire in Lebanon, and the latest war has continued despite a conditional truce deal announced last week after Lebanese-Israeli talks in Washington.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli strikes on more than 30 locations in southern and eastern Lebanon on Wednesday, including on Tayr Debba and Deir Qanun al-Nahr, and on three towns where Israel's military issued evacuation warnings.

It also reported an Israeli drone strike on a vehicle in Sidon, a coastal city far from the border that has been relatively spared major Israeli attacks and which hosts many displaced people.

An AFP correspondent in Sidon heard an explosion before seeing a car burning and rescuers pulling two people from the vehicle.

Lebanon's health ministry reported nine dead including a woman in the Israeli attack on Tayr Debba and three people killed in Sidon.

A medical source had told AFP on condition of anonymity that four people were killed in Deir Qanun al-Nahr, which the health ministry statement did not mention.

- Two men released -

In a video statement, Netanyahu told the Lebanese people: "Israel is not at war with you. We are at war with Hezbollah, that has taken your country hostage... We yearn for peace with you, with Lebanon."

"Seize your future. Join Israel. Build safety and prosperity for all of our children. And once Hezbollah is dismantled, the possibilities are endless."

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war on March 2 with rocket fire at Israel in support of its backer Iran.

The group rejected last week's conditional truce deal, which stipulated a "complete cessation" of Hezbollah fire but did not mention a halt to Israeli strikes.

Its fighters have kept up attacks on Israeli troops who have invaded south Lebanon, including with rockets and drones on Wednesday.

Several hundred of its supporters, many brandishing Hezbollah and Iranian flags, rallied on Wednesday evening in Beirut's southern suburbs in support Iran and its allies in the Middle East war, AFP correspondents said.

Lebanese authorities say Israeli attacks since March have killed nearly 3,700 people.

On the Israeli side, 29 soldiers and one civilian contractor have been killed in Lebanon, according to the military.

Iran insists that Lebanon must be part of any agreement to end the wider Middle East war.

- 'Hostile act' -

The Kfarshuba municipality said in a statement on Facebook that town council member Mohammad al-Hajj and employee Ahmad Diab "were released and returned to the town" on Wednesday evening.

The NNA had reported that the pair "were working to pump water" to the town when an "Israeli patrol stopped them" and took them to an unknown location.

The Israeli military said in a statement to AFP in Jerusalem that it "identified two suspected individuals who approached the area in which (Israeli) soldiers are operating in southern Lebanon".

"The soldiers apprehended the suspected individuals, who were transferred to Israeli territory for further questioning."

The municipality had condemned a "hostile act towards two innocent men who were carrying out a humanitarian service" and said the pair "had no intention of approaching Israeli forces".

Sunni-majority Kfarshuba is among a few southern villages, most of them Christian, whose residents have chosen to stay throughout the war despite Israeli military orders to evacuate.

On Tuesday, the association of Christian border villages in southern Lebanon urged authorities to "immediately open safe humanitarian and medical corridors to ensure the access of citizens, aid and medical and relief teams to the affected and isolated villages".

It warned that most roads to their villages are now "cut off or extremely dangerous".