France on Thursday said an agreement between Israel and Hamas on the release of 50 hostages in exchange for a humanitarian truce should go ahead "without further delay".

Paris is also urging "the immediate release of all hostages", said Anne-Claire Legendre, spokeswoman for the French foreign ministry. "We call for the terms of this agreement to be fully respected," she added.

Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met Thursday with Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah at an undisclosed location in Lebanon.

In a statement, Hezbollah said Amir-Abdollahian and Nasrallah "reviewed the latest developments in Palestine, Lebanon and the region, and... the efforts made to end the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip".

Hezbollah said Thursday that five of its fighters, including the son of a senior lawmaker, had been killed, amid skirmishes at the Israel-Lebanon border since the Israel-Hamas war began.

Abbas Raad, son of the head of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc Mohammed Raad, was "martyred on the road to Jerusalem", the group said in a statement -- the phrase it has been using to announce the death of its members due to Israeli fire since the war started on October 7.

The White House said Tuesday that Russia's Wagner mercenary group plans to provide an air defense system to Lebanon's Hezbollah militants or to the regime in Tehran, as part of an "unprecedented defense cooperation" between the two U.S. adversaries.

"Our information... indicates that Wagner, at the direction of the Russian government, was preparing to provide an air defense capability to either Hezbollah or Iran," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller has said that Washington is "concerned by the reports that civilians including two journalists were killed in Lebanon" on Tuesday.

"We have made clear we don't want to see the conflict in Gaza spread to Lebanon. That has been one of our top priorities," he told reporters in Washington.

President Joe Biden's administration hopes that a truce in Gaza will lead to a "full pause" in fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border, a senior U.S. official said late Tuesday.

"We also hope that this (agreed four-day truce between Israel and Hamas) will lead to a full pause in some of the hostilities in the north, on the Lebanese border," the U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.

Israel and Hamas announced a deal on Wednesday allowing at least 50 hostages and scores of Palestinian prisoners to be freed, while offering besieged Gaza residents an extendable four-day truce after weeks of all-out war.

In the first major diplomatic breakthrough in the war, Palestinian militants will release during a four-day truce 50 women and children taken captive during their October 7 raids.

U.S. forces on Tuesday "responded" following an attack on them at an Iraq base that caused minor injuries to personnel and damage to infrastructure, a U.S. military official said.

"Following the attack... U.S. forces responded in self-defense against those who carried out the strike," the official said on condition of anonymity when asked about a dawn drone attack in the Abu Ghraib region west of Baghdad.

In black robes, white moustaches and traditional hats, Druze religious elders stood before the coffin of Israeli soldier Adi Malik Harb, killed fighting Hamas militants in Gaza.

But while Israel's Druze minority serve in the military and fight and die for the country, many of them say their communities are marginalized and deprived of public investment while families are fined crippling sums for building homes due to selective enforcement of planning rules.

Two civilians and two journalists were Killed Tuesday in south Lebanon by Israeli bombardment.

Al-Mayadeen reporter and videographer Farah Omar, 25 years old, and Rabih al-Maamari, a father of two, have been killed as Israel targeted a group of journalists between Tayr Harfa and al-Jebbayn.