The third round of Lebanese-Israeli talks will be held next week at the U.S. State Department over two consecutive days, either Wednesday and Thursday or Thursday and Friday, LBCI television reported Wednesday.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Wednesday that "talking about any potential meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still premature."

Pope Leo XIV surprised 13 priests from southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, by joining a video call from Rome on Wednesday, telling them they were in his prayers and that he hoped peace would soon prevail along the tense frontier.

The Lebanese Catholic and Maronite priests were asked to attend an online morning meeting with the Vatican's ambassador to Lebanon, Archbishop Paolo Borgia. Once online, Borgia told them Leo was also present and would like to speak with them.

Israel's army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir visited troops in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, vowing to dismantle Hezbollah and saying the military was prepared to launch a new offensive against Iran if needed.

A Lebanese court on Wednesday acquitted singer Fadel Shaker of the attempted murder of an official from a Hezbollah-allied group, a judicial official told AFP, after the star surrendered to police.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that peace between ‌Israel and Lebanon is "achievable" and that "the problem is not Israel or Lebanon" but Hezbollah.

Rubio told reporters on Tuesday at the White House that he thinks "a peace deal between Lebanon and Israel ​is imminently achievable and should be".

Syrian authorities announced on Tuesday they had arrested a Hezbollah-affiliated cell plotting to assassinate government officials, while the Lebanese group denied the "false accusations".

The Syrian interior ministry said that it had conducted a "series of simultaneous security operations" in the Damascus countryside, Aleppo, Homs, Tartus and Latakia provinces.

Israel's military on Wednesday issued a new evacuation warning for a dozen villages in southern and eastern Lebanon ahead of expected strikes, despite a truce with Lebanon intended to halt the fighting with Iran-backed Hezbollah.

"For your safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately and move away from the villages and towns by at least 1,000 meters into open areas," the military's Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X, listing 12 villages.

Germany's foreign minister Tuesday offered qualified support for Israel's military invasion of Lebanon during a visit of his Israeli counterpart to Berlin, while also criticizing humanitarian conditions in Gaza and "de facto annexation" in the West Bank.

The Health Ministry in Beirut said Tuesday that 8,311 people were also wounded during the same period.