France's President Emmanuel Macron said he urged Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to "refrain from a ground offensive" in Lebanon in their first phone call since last summer.

Hezbollah will confront "Israeli-American aggression" and will not surrender despite the "imbalance in capabilities", the head of the Iran-backed Lebanese group Sheikh Naim Qassem said Wednesday night in a televised speech.

The Lebanese Army said Wednesday it had arrested 27 people in the past two days for "illegally possessing weapons and ammunition", following a government decision to ban Hezbollah's military activities.

Iran's armed forces threatened on Wednesday to target Israeli missions worldwide if Israel were to attack Tehran's mission in Lebanon, a military spokesman said.

The Israeli military is planning on at least "one or two" more weeks of strikes on Iran, Israeli media reported on Wednesday, the war's fifth day, while launching a fresh wave of attacks in Lebanon against Tehran-backed Hezbollah militants.

The Israeli military said anti-tank fire in south Lebanon injured two of its soldiers on Wednesday, after Hezbollah said it had struck two Israeli military vehicles.

Hezbollah said Wednesday it had targeted an Israeli military base near Tel Aviv in central Israel and a naval base in Haifa in the north with swarms of attack drones.

Nearly 150 people were missing and several dead after an Iranian warship sank Wednesday off Sri Lanka following what crew members reported as an explosion, officials said.

Iran announced that a state funeral for supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which had been planned for Wednesday evening in Tehran, was postponed "in anticipation of unprecedented turnout," state television reported.

"The farewell ceremony for the martyred Imam has been postponed. The new date will be announced later," Iranian television reported on Wednesday after Khamenei was killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes over the weekend.

The Israeli military told residents living south of Lebanon's Litani river to immediately head north on Wednesday, warning that the Israeli army was "compelled to take military action" against Hezbollah in the area.