Caretaker Defense Minister Maurice Slim has stormed out of a meeting with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati in connection with a dispute over the looming vacuum in the army commander post.

The Israeli army said Thursday its forces had eliminated "five Hezbollah cells" that tried to open fire from south Lebanon yesterday.

Israel later fired two artillery shells on the Ghasouna area in Blida's eastern outskirts and on the outskirts of Aita al-Shaab with phosphorus bombs, as its troops machine-gunned the forests surrounding the Ruwaisat al-Alam site in the Kfarshouba Heights and Wadi Hounin, facing Markaba.

International contacts at the highest levels were held with Lebanese authorities after caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said that Lebanon is still committed to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, a media report said.

As Israel and Hezbollah trade near-daily cross-border fire in a relatively contained tit-for-tat fire, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea considers that Hezbollah is taking the decision of war, bypassing the state.

After admitting that the opposition cannot do anything about it in an interview in L'Orient Le-Jour, Geagea called on Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati to ask all "militants" to withdraw from the border, where daily clashes are taking place.

Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh told reporters after his meeting with Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Wednesday that he is carrying on with his presidential nomination, a media report said on Thursday.

The Israeli military said late Wednesday that its aircraft struck at Lebanon in retaliation for the earlier launch of a surface-to-air missile.

"A short while ago, the IDF Aerial Defense Array intercepted a surface-to-air missile fired from Lebanon at an IDF UAV (drone)," the Israeli Defense Forces said in a statement.

Economic crises are rippling through the countries bordering Israel, raising the possibility of a chain reaction from the war with Hamas that further worsens the financial health and political stability of Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan and creates problems well beyond.

Each of the three countries is up against differing economic pressures that led the International Monetary Fund to warn in a September report that they could lose their "sociopolitical stability." That warning came shortly before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, triggering a war that could easily cause economic chaos that President Joe Biden and the European Union would likely need to address.

Kataeb Party chief Sami Gemayel has lamented that “Lebanon is hijacked” and that “the legitimate Lebanese authorities do not have any decision in their hands,” amid the daily clashes between Hezbollah and Israel on the border.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has criticized an initiative launched by Free Patriotic leader Jebran Bassil to unify the Lebanese stance against the risk of war, dubbing it "an empty posturing".

In an interview published Wednesday in L'Orient Le-Jour, Geagea admitted that the opposition cannot do anything anymore to protect Lebanon from the risk of joining the Israel-Hamas war, as he said that it is Hezbollah, and not the Lebanese state, that is taking the war and peace decision.

Former Progressive Socialisty Party leader Walid Jumblat has warned that Lebanon might be “dragged into a war that might be harsher than the 2006 war.”