Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has communicated with Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil over the past two days, through the official channel between them, asking the FPM leader to support his nomination for the presidency, a media report said.

Geagea’s messages included an “acknowledgement” that it would be “difficult” to see him elected president, but he asked Bassil to back him “under the excuse of blocking (the election of Suleiman) Franjieh,” al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Wednesday.

For more than a decade, a steady flow of Syrians have crossed the border from their war-torn country into Lebanon. But anti-refugee sentiment is rising there, and in the past two months, hundreds of Syrian refugees have gone the other way.

They're taking a smugglers' route home across remote mountainous terrain, on motorcycle or on foot, then traveling by car on a risky drive through government-held territory into opposition-held northwestern Syria, avoiding checkpoints or bribing their way through.

After the roar of Israeli warplanes terrified her baby grandson, Umm Hassan's family sought solace on a south Lebanon beach, hoping to escape the escalating cross-border violence.

Life goes on but "the children are frightened," the 60-year-old told AFP from the beach in Tyre, about 20 kilometers from the Israel-Lebanon frontier.

Hezbollah on Wednesday said it fired dozens of rockets and shells at a military factory in Israel's Sa'sa', the Israeli army's northern headquarters in Ein Zeitim near Safad, a command center in Ami'ad near Tiberias, the Meron air control base near Lebanon's border, and the Zar'it barracks.

It said the major attack was in response to an overnight Israeli airstrike on the Tyre district town of Jwaya that killed senior Hezbollah commander Taleb Abdallah and three other fighters.

An Israeli strike on southern Lebanon killed a senior Hezbollah commander overnight Tuesday, the group said.

It named the commander as Taleb Abdallah, also known as Abu Taleb, born in 1969, in a statement reporting his death.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Tuesday hit out at Speaker Nabih Berri, calling on him to “call for an electoral session with successive rounds until the election of a president.”

“Every day you raise several issues, topics and suggestions and you exhaust yourself and the Lebanese people with you, while all these proposals have nothing to do with the main topic,” Geagea said in a post on the X platform.

An interceptor missile fired from Syria landed overnight on an under-construction house in the Akkar town of Fnaydeq, lightly wounding a child and causing material damage, the National News Agency said.

The Syrian air defense missile was fired during a deadly Israeli airstrike that targeted a Hezbollah convoy and a building in the Hermel border town of Hawsh al-Sayyed Ali.

Hezbollah said Tuesday it has fired overnight a surface-to-air missile at an Israeli warplane that "violated Lebanese airspace", forcing it to retreat beyond the border.

Since the border clashes erupted on October 8 following Israel's war on Gaza, Hezbollah has shot down several Israeli drones, including some that they identified as Hermes 450s or Hermes 900s. Last Thursday, Hezbollah used anti-aircraft missiles against Israeli jets for the first time. It used them again on Sunday.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil stressed Tuesday that the only solution for the presidential vacuum crisis would be “agreeing on a president” prior to the vote.

“There is no interest in the continuation of the presidential vacuum because it is harming the country,” said Bassil after meeting with MP Faisal Karameh.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has sarcastically responded to remarks voiced by Speaker Nabih Berri regarding Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil’s presidential proposals.

“I congratulate Speaker Berri on Bassil. Anyhow, birds of a feather flock together,” MTV quoted Geagea as telling his visitors.