Pope Francis on Monday called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and south Lebanon, in an annual speech listing threats to global peace and human dignity.

Israel killed Monday a top commander from Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces in a strike in south Lebanon, adding to fears the conflict in Gaza could spill over.

The commander, Wissam Tawil, was killed in an Israeli raid targeting his Honda SUV in the southern village of Khirbet Selm, which lies around 15 kilometers away from the border.

Missiles, rockets and drones struck targets around the Middle East this week as the United States, Israel and others clashed with Iran-allied militant groups — with attacks hitting in vital Red Sea shipping lanes, along Israeli-Lebanon borders emptied by fleeing residents and around the region's crowded capitals and U.S. military installations.

Together, Israel and its U.S. allies were facing two realities they knew all too well going into the war in Gaza: The Gaza-based Hamas militant group is far from alone as it battles for its survival. And by launching an all-out campaign to eliminate Hamas as a fighting force, Israeli and American leaders also are confronting simultaneous attacks from a strengthening defensive alliance of other armed militant groups linked with Hamas and Iran.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock will carry to Lebanon an Israeli proposal calling for the deployment of German forces on the Lebanese side of the border with Israel, Lebanese sources said.

Hezbollah has struck an air traffic control base in northern Israel, the Israeli military said, warning of "another war" with the Iran-backed militant group.

The increase in fighting across the border with Lebanon as Israel battles Hamas militants in Gaza gave new urgency to U.S. diplomatic efforts as Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to visit Israel on his latest Mideast tour.

In the last week alone, Israel has killed a senior Hamas militant in an airstrike in Beirut, Hezbollah has fired barrages of rockets into Israel, the U.S. has killed a militia commander in Baghdad and Iran-backed rebels in Yemen have traded fire with the American Navy.

Each strike and counterstrike increases the risk of the already catastrophic war in Gaza spilling across the region. And in the decades-old standoff pitting the U.S. and Israel against Iran and allied militant groups, any one party could choose all-out war over a loss of face.

The information display screens at Beirut's international airport were hacked by domestic anti-Hezbollah groups Sunday, as clashes between the Lebanese militant group and the Israeli military continue to intensify along the border.

Departure and arrival information was replaced by a message accusing the Hezbollah group of putting Lebanon at risk of an all-out war with Israel.

An American intelligence assessment found that it would be difficult for Israel to succeed in a war against Hezbollah amid ongoing fighting in Gaza, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.

U.S. President Joe Biden has dispatched his top aides to the Middle East with "a critical objective: Prevent a full-blown war from erupting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah," the U.S. newspaper said.

The European Union's foreign policy chief met Hezbollah's top lawmaker Mohammed Raad in Beirut on Saturday, as part of a push to avoid Lebanon being dragged into the Israel-Hamas war.

An EU source confirmed the meeting, which came hours after Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets at an Israeli military base in response to the killing of a senior Hamas figure in an Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs on Tuesday.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire in one of the heaviest days of cross-border fighting in recent weeks, a day after Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah urged retaliation for Israel's killing of a top Hamas leader in the suburbs of Lebanon's capital.

Nasrallah said that if his group didn't strike back for the killing Tuesday of Saleh Arouri, Hamas' deputy political leader, all of Lebanon would be vulnerable to Israeli attacks.