Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes.

Israel, which had kept up attacks against Hezbollah even before the war despite a 2024 ceasefire, carried out multiple strikes last week across Lebanon and sent ground troops into border areas.

On Monday, the Israeli military warned it would strike branches of Al-Qard al-Hassan, a US-sanctioned financial firm mainly operating in Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon's south, east and Beirut's southern suburbs.

Later in the day it launched a number of attacks on several of its branches in Beirut's south, according to the state-run National News Agency and AFP correspondents.

An AFP photographer in the suburbs witnessed a massive explosion, while an armed Hezbollah member fired warning shots into the air to evacuate residents from their homes.

The strikes killed one person, the Lebanese health ministry said in a preliminary toll.

The Israeli army renewed previous orders for people in the area to leave.

Al-Qard al-Hassan is a lifeline for mainly Muslim Shiite communities who have been battling a years-long financial crisis in Lebanon that has locked people out of their bank deposits.

It says it has more than 30 branches nationwide, mainly in Hezbollah bastions such as Beirut's southern suburbs, but also in central Beirut and other major cities.

In a separate statement, Israel's army said it had started a "targeted and limited raid in an area in southern Lebanon to locate and eliminate" Hezbollah members and infrastructure.

"This activity is part of the effort to further strengthen forward defensive positions in order to provide an additional layer of protection for residents of northern Israel."

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Hezbollah claimed responsibility on Monday for at least 10 previous attacks against Israel and its forces, including against troops that advanced into Lebanese border towns and a missile salvo on an air base in Haifa.

Earlier that day it also said it had fought Israeli troops that landed in eastern Lebanon by helicopter, the second such incident since the latest war began.

Lebanese authorities said Sunday that Israel's attacks since March 2 have killed at least 394 people including 83 children.

Beirut has also registered 517,000 displaced people.

Israeli strikes on sites belonging to the Hezbollah-linked Islamic Health Committee in the Tyre and Jwaya areas in south Lebanon killed two paramedics and wounded six, the health ministry said, accusing Israel of "systematic targeting of rescue teams".

Despite the bombing in Beirut, Lebanon's parliament met on Monday and postponed legislative elections by two years due to the conflict.

The polls had been scheduled to take place in May.

In Lebanon's southern city of Sidon, an area outside of Hezbollah's traditional strongholds, an AFP correspondent saw ambulances and civil defence vehicles gather around a branch of Al-Qard al-Hassan.

Israel also bombed the firm's branches during its last war with Hezbollah in 2024, including the one in Sidon.