Israel carried out strikes on towns in southern Lebanon, causing multiple injuries, state media reported on Friday.

Forced by yet another war in Lebanon to flee his home for the second time in just two years, and mourning lost relatives and friends, Hassan Kiki said he feels much older than 16.

An Israeli warplane broke the sound barrier over Beirut on Friday morning, state media said, as AFP journalists heard loud booms reverberate across the city and in distant mountains.

Lebanon's state electricity company said on Thursday that an Israeli attack knocked out power to a region of southern Lebanon.

Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani said Thursday that Israel has killed 500 Hezbollah fighters in its current war against the group, among them 200 from the elite Radwan unit. He gave no further evidence.

The claim came as the death toll in Lebanon topped 1,000.

Russia on Thursday blamed Israel for what it called a "targeted" airstrike that wounded a TV crew from state-run RT in Lebanon amid ongoing Israeli strikes and ground operations in the country's south.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said on Thursday that tying Lebanon to regional calculations would give Israel a "pretext to expand its aggression" against the country, where Israel has been fighting Hezbollah for more than two weeks.

Lebanon was brought into the regional war on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets toward Israel in response to the killing of its ally Iran's supreme leader in Israeli-U.S. attacks.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on Thursday urged U.S. President Donald Trump in a CNN interview to help end the Israeli war on Lebanon, reaffirming the country's readiness to "enter into immediate negotiations with Israel."

The U.S. administration believes it is in the interest of both Israel and the U.S. to begin negotiations with Lebanon, but disagreements persist regarding the details, with Israel insisting on conducting them "under fire," U.S. sources in Washington told Al-Jadeed TV.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea accused Hezbollah on Thursday of trying to drag its opponents, including the LF, into a civil war. "Noone will clash with them except the army and the security forces," he told MTV in an interview.

Geagea said Hezbollah's battle is "domestic" and removing Israel is a fake slogan the group uses. He said Hezbollah's priorities are tied exclusively to Iran, even if they might occasionally align with Lebanon's interests, and called for the arrest of Mahmoud Qmati after his recent statements against the satte and for ending Hezbollah's participation in the government after "its coup against the government's decisions".