Paris is exerting efforts in many directions in the region in a bid to contain the explosive situations and “weaken the possibilities of a broad war starting from south Lebanon’s front,” a diplomatic source in Paris said.

The head of Hezbollah’s Coordination and Liaison Committee, Wafiq Safa, told Emirati officials during his latest visit to the UAE that his leadership is willing to halt the fighting on Lebanon’s southern front, a media report said.

Hezbollah attacked Thursday two settlements in northern Israel in retaliation to what it called a "massacre" on the southern border town of Naqoura.

The group said it targeted the Shlomi and Goren settlements in response to the attacks on civilians and especially the Israeli strikes on Naqoura and Tayr Harfa that killed Hezbollah and Amal paramedics.

The British Embassy has delivered 60 tons of Land Rover spare parts and tyres to the Lebanese Army.

The British Ambassador to Lebanon Hamish Cowell oversaw the handover Wednesday at the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) Logistics Base in Kfarshima.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni met Thursday with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati at the government palace in Beirut.

Meloni is on a two-day visit to Lebanon during which she will meet some Lebanese officials and visit Italian peacekeepers based in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel.

A series of Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon killed 16 people and a barrage of rockets fired by the militant group Hezbollah killed one Israeli man, making Wednesday the deadliest day in more than five months of fighting along the border.

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, concerns have grown about further escalation along the Israel-Lebanon frontier. Tens of thousands of people on both sides have been displaced by the violence.

Jamaa Islamiya has a much lower profile than other militant groups in Lebanon, but the escalation of strikes over the border with Israel is pushing it into the spotlight.

Formed in the 1960s, Jamaa Islamiya claims to have carried out operations with Palestinian militant group Hamas in southern Lebanon and said seven affiliated rescuers were killed in an overnight Israeli strike.

Israeli airstrikes killed nine people in southern Lebanon late Wednesday, including paramedics who were preparing to respond to the first strike, the state-run National News Agency said.

That raises the number of people killed by Israeli strikes Wednesday to 16, after an overnight attack hit a different paramedic center linked to a Lebanese Sunni Muslim group, killing seven of the group's members.

The Free Patriotic Movement on Wednesday called on Hezbollah to “do everything to spare civilians across Lebanon” the threat of “coming under Israeli bombardment,” a day after residents of the southern border town of Rmeish accused Hezbollah of trying to fire rockets at Israel from their town.

U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies are seeking to infiltrate Lebanon’s Jamaa Islamiya group, especially its Fajr Forces, in connection with “the close relation between the group and the Hamas Movement, and its improving relation with Hezbollah,” informed sources said.