Mediator Pakistan confirmed on Thursday that negotiations between the United States and Iran were "ongoing" during a flare-up in fighting across the Middle East.

"Negotiations between parties are ongoing, particularly on (the) Strait of Hormuz and to de-escalate," Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi told reporters in Islamabad.

Lebanese judicial authorities have issued a warrant seeking the arrest of influential businessman Antoun Sehnaoui accused of meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A Lebanese judicial source told AFP that prosecutor and judge Ahmad Rami had issued a 30-day wanted notice for Sehnaoui "on charges of dealing with the Israeli enemy and violating Lebanon's boycott law against Israel".

Israel's military chief, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, visited soldiers deployed in southern Lebanon on Wednesday.

He said the army "will not withdraw from the security zone until long-term security is ensured".

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the U.S. military will be hitting Iran "hard" after a missile attack against U.S. bases in Jordan, Fox News reported.

"We'll be hitting them hard. They're going to get a beating," Fox's correspondent quoted Trump as saying, adding that the U.S. president used swear words to emphasize his point: "We are going to beat the 'effing s' out of them."

A minister with Yemen's internationally recognized government told AFP on Wednesday that the country's Houthi rebels were working under Iranian guidance to establish a system to impose fees for ships transiting the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

Information minister Moammar al-Eryani described "the move as a dangerous escalation aimed at transforming one of the world's most strategic maritime corridors into a permanent source of funding for the militia's military and terrorist activities".

The Israeli army is considering a military response to the damage inflicted on an engineering vehicle by a “Hezbollah drone” in the Ali al-Taher heights in southern Lebanon, Israel’s Channel 14 said on Wednesday.

“Beirut's southern suburbs will not be a target in the response,” the channel added.

Iranian state television on Wednesday said the United States struck a city in the country's northwest on the border with Iraq.

"A few minutes ago, a location in the Piranshahr border area was attacked by American enemy airstrikes," state television reported.

As Lebanon's army deploys in the southern village of Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, Hassan Sbeih is among those reassured by the troops and hoping the move will soon extend to areas still occupied by Israel.

Last week, the Lebanese military began deploying to the devastated village, one of the first "pilot zones" under a framework agreement reached between Israel and Lebanon in June.

U.N. peacekeepers have found around four tons of mainly ammonium nitrate explosives this month in a south Lebanon border village under Israeli occupation.

On July 2 during a "routine route check" near Houla, "peacekeepers found 385 containers abandoned inside a building, containing approximately 4,000 kilograms of explosive material, consisting mainly of ammonium nitrate compounds", the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said Tuesday in a statement.

Lebanese security forces have arrested a man accused of transferring nearly half a million dollars to the Islamic State group in neighboring Syria, a judicial official told AFP on Tuesday.

Forces "arrested a man who had stolen $400,000 from his father's safe, and investigations showed that he had transferred the money to Syria" for IS, the official said on condition of anonymity.