The head of a Lebanese Sunni political and militant group that has joined the Shiite militant group Hezbollah in its fight against Israel on Lebanon's border said Tuesday that the conflict has helped strengthen cooperation between the two groups.

The Secretary-General of al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, Sheikh Mohammed Takkoush said his faction decided to join the fighting along the Lebanon-Israel border because of Israel's crushing offensive on the Gaza Strip and its strikes against Lebanese towns and villages killing civilians, including journalists, since the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct.7.

Lebanon's National News Agency said fresh Israeli strikes on eastern Lebanon on Tuesday killed two people, after Hezbollah said it fired more than 50 rockets at the Golan Heights in response to an Israeli airstrike earlier in the day near the eastern city of Hermel.

The Israeli army said in two separate statements that it had struck Hezbollah targets "deep inside Lebanese territory."

An Israeli airstrike targeted Tuesday a small truck deep into Lebanese territory, in the country's east.

The Israeli airstrike on the Faara Valley near the Lebanese eastern city of Hermel came hours after Hezbollah targeted the Meron air base in northern Israel.

A clash erupted Tuesday between residents from the southern border town of Rmeish and a group belonging to Hezbollah that was readying to set up a multiple rocket launcher (MRL) within the town’s boundaries, residents said.

Caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib has said that his recent remarks about Lebanon’s readiness to engage in a war with Israel were a “gaffe or a mistake.”

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has described Hezbollah, without naming it, as “a group that does not care about the state and is daily seeking to destroy its pillars.”

Two people were killed overnight in a strike on a house in the southern border town of Mays al Jabal, the National News Agency said, as Hezbollah announced the death of one of its members "on the road to Jerusalem."

On Tuesday, Israeli warplanes and artillery bombed Kfarkela, al Khiam, al-Naqoura, Aita al-Shaab, Maroun al-Ras, Aitaroun, al-Jebbayn, Yarin and a civil defense center in Tayr Harfa.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has hailed the U.N. Security Council call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza five months into the grinding war.

Mikati said the resolution is the "first stage in the process of ending Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip," as he urged the international community to pressure Israel to stop its aggression against south Lebanon.

An Israeli drone strike on eastern Lebanon targeted a Lebanese official from a Hamas-allied group who escaped the attempted killing, a Lebanese security source said.

Lebanon's official National News Agency said the strike Sunday near the village of Suwairi in the Bekaa Valley killed a Syrian civilian in his vehicle.

Israel will not end its war against Hamas until militants free hostages, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday in Washington after Israel cancelled another U.S.-bound delegation over a U.N. Security Council ceasefire call.

"We have no moral right to stop the war while there are still hostages held in Gaza. The lack of a decisive victory in Gaza may bring us closer to a war in the north," Gallant said ahead of meetings with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.