Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said that Israel is “not looking for war” with Hezbollah and that a diplomatic solution is preferable, as the far-right Otzma Yehudit party indicated it would bolt the government if Israel shied away from launching a full-scale assault on the Iran-backed Lebanese group.

Nevertheless, Gallant reiterated that Israel is making preparations and planning for a wider conflict, and said the ball is in Hezbollah’s court.

U.S. officials have suggested, without providing details, that there may be options for ending the conflict on the Israel-Lebanon border without a Gaza cease-fire, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.

Draft agreements have called for Hezbollah to move heavy weapons away from the Israeli border, while offering reconstruction funds for Lebanon, among other terms, according to Lebanese and European officials and published reports.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Saturday paid an inspection visit to war-hit south Lebanon.

Mikati started his tour at an army barracks in Tyre before inspecting official school exam centers and holding a meeting with health officials.

The European Union has imposed asset freezes and visa bans on several firms and individuals accused of helping to finance Palestinian militant Islamist group Hamas, Brussels said.

The sanctions were the second round to be imposed by the EU on the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad groups after their attack on Israel on October 7.

Israel’s military said Friday that about 25 rockets were launched from Lebanon toward northern Israel, damaging a building and setting fires as tensions between Israel and Hezbollah threaten to spiral into a full-blown war.

Israeli artillery bombarded the sources of the rocket fire, and the Israeli army said its warplanes also struck what it described as Hezbollah air defense infrastructure in the area of Jabal Safi, north of the city of Nabatieh.

The amphibious assault ship USS Wasp entered the eastern Mediterranean Sea this week as the U.S. positions warships to try to keep fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon from escalating into a wider war in the Middle East.

While the Wasp has the capability to assist in the evacuation of civilians if full-scale war breaks out between Israel and the Iranian-backed group along the Lebanon border, that’s not the primary reason it was rotated in, a U.S. official said. “It’s about deterrence,” the official said.

Western diplomatic sources did not sense a serious desire from Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for an all-out war on Lebanon during his latest visit to Washington, a media report said on Friday.

“Despite the public threats, the majority of which are for consumption and are targeted at the Israeli interior, there was consensus with the U.S. officials that although the situation is unbearable on the northern front, and although the war’s goals are legitimate from an Israeli viewpoint, there is no ability to achieve them without triggering a regional confrontation, not to mention the strategic damages that will affect Israel,” ad-Diyar newspaper reported.

The military indications on the Lebanese-Israeli border do not suggest that there is “something unconventional” that is being prepared by Israel, “at least in the foreseeable future,” a media report said.

"The intensive (Israeli) exercises are only aimed at upping the preparedness of an exhausted army, after months of fighting in Gaza, and the declared transportation of combat units from the Strip to the border with Lebanon has not yet reached an alarming level,” ad-Diyar newspaper reported on Friday.

Hezbollah targeted Friday surveillance equipment in Birkat Risha in north Israel, a day after it announced four of its fighters had been killed.

Israeli artillery meanwhile shelled the outskirts of the southern coastal town of al-Naqoura, and warplanes raided a home in Shihin in the Tyre district.

A large-scale confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah is likely to break out in the next several weeks if Israel and Hamas fail to reach a cease-fire deal in Gaza, U.S. intelligence indicates.

The Israeli army and Hezbollah “have drafted battle plans and are in the process of trying to procure additional weapons,” two senior U.S. officials briefed on the intelligence told U.S. news portal Politico.