The human rights group Amnesty International has said that civilians in southern Lebanon were injured this month when Israeli forces hit a border village with shells containing white phosphorus, a controversial incendiary munition.

The organization said it verified three other instances of Israel's military dropping white phosphorus on Lebanese border areas in the past month, but Amnesty said it did not document any harm to civilians in those cases.

Hezbollah targeted and destroyed Tuesday a Merkava tank in the Israeli Branit post and targeted the al-Marj Israeli post facing the southern border town of Markaba with guided missiles.

It earlier fired guided missiles at an Israeli force that was setting up an ambush on a hill. Hezbollah said it inflicted casualties among the members of the Israeli force on the al-Khazzan hill near al-Assi post.

Sarit Zehavi, founder and director of Alma, a research center in the upper Galilee region near Lebanon’s border, says she is worried about the safety of her family.

Kataeb Party chief MP Sami Gemayel on Tuesday said that “Lebanon can still avoid being dragged into war through fully deploying the Lebanese Army on the Lebanese border.”

Former Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat has dubbed absurd Hezbollah and FPM chief Jebran Bassil's refusal to extend the term of Army chief Gen. Joseph Aoun, ahead of his planned retirement in January.

"For political reasons related to Hezbollah and Bassil, we are being blackmailed again into not extending Aoun's term," Jumblat told LBCI. "This is absurd."

The Strong Republic bloc of the Lebanese Forces on Tuesday submitted a draft law aimed at extending the term of Army Commander General Joseph Aoun.

Former Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat has warned against the interference of some factions in the south, where Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging daily cross-border fire.

"I prefer for the war and peace decision to remain only in the hands of Hezbollah," Jubmlat said in an interview with LBCI, as he feared that some "unorganized" organizations might drag Lebanon into an all-out war against its will.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s speech on Friday will include “a clear stance on the U.S. military reinforcements in the Eastern Mediterranean and on the direct intervention in the ongoing war in Gaza,” a media report said.

An analysis of video evidence and witness testimonies from the scene of strikes that killed one journalist and injured six others in south Lebanon this month found that the journalists were “explicitly targeted,” the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.

Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed near the village of Alma al-Shaab while covering an exchange of fire along the border between Israeli troops and members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Monday he was working to ensure his country does not enter the Hamas-Israel war, even as Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging cross-border fire.

Mikati said he feared an escalation, with the border skirmishes stoking concerns that Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah could launch its own war with Israel.