Lebanon's national carrier Friday said it was cutting more than half of its flights as tensions along the border with Israel prompted more Western countries to warn against travel to Lebanon.

Hezbollah said Friday evening that it attacked Israeli troops and inflicted casualties in response to a deadly attack on journalists and civilians a day earlier.

Israel responded by shelling the outskirts of several Lebanese border towns, with Israeli media outlets reporting "fierce" clashes on the border.

U.S. President Joe Biden said Friday he believed the first trucks carrying aid to Gaza would come through the Rafah crossing from Egypt within the next two days.

"I believe in the next 24 to 48 hours the first 20 trucks will come across the border," Biden said as he met European Union chiefs at the White House.

Russia on Friday advised its citizens against travelling to Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinian territories amid flaring tensions over Israel's war with Hamas.

"The situation in the Middle East is heating up," the foreign ministry said. "We strongly recommend that Russian citizens refrain from travelling to the region, especially to Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinian territories."

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres paid a visit to the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza on Friday to oversee preparations for the delivery of aid to the war-torn enclave.

Cargo planes and trucks have been bringing aid to the crossing for days, but so far none has been delivered to Gaza, which Israel has besieged and bombed for 13 days in response to a deadly cross-border attack by Hamas militants on October 7.

The death toll from a raid by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank rose to 13, Palestinian health officials said Friday, as casualties mounted in the territory while war rages in Gaza.

At least 81 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops or settlers in the West Bank since the Gaza conflict erupted on October 7, according to figures from the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah.

The army blamed Israel Friday for killing a member of a "journalist team" covering cross-border tensions in the country's south, as war rages further south between Israel and Gaza-based militants.

On Thursday, "a journalist team of seven people covering news... near the Israeli enemy’s al-Abad site outside the town of Houla, was targeted with machine guns by enemy (Israeli) members, killing one and injuring another," the Lebanese army said in a statement.

The Israeli army announced plans to evacuate the northern city of Kiryat Shmona on Friday, after days of clashes with Hezbollah fighters along the border with Lebanon.

"A short while ago, the Northern Command informed the mayor of the city of the decision. The plan will be managed by the local authority, the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Defence," the military said in a statement.

Washington, London and Berlin on Thursday advised their citizens to leave Lebanon as border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah intensify over Israel's war with Hamas.

"We recommend that U.S. citizens in Lebanon make appropriate arrangements to leave the country; commercial options currently remain available," a statement from the U.S. embassy in Beirut said, with a similar warning issued by the British.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius arrived Thursday in Beirut on a surprise visit, amid a war that is raging between Israel and Hamas and growing violence on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.