Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea overnight said he expresses “the deepest sentiments of sympathy with the Lebanese southerners, especially the residents of border villages.”

U.S. President Joe Biden over the past week conducted an intense round of diplomacy and military preparation to stave off a catastrophic war in the Middle East, the Washington Post has reported.

“The White House effort has included back-channel talks with Iran to urge restraint, blunt warnings to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to obstruct a cease-fire in Gaza, and the dispatch of a U.S. naval and air armada to protect Israel and other U.S. allies if deterrence fails,” the U.S. newspaper said.

Two people were killed and six others were injured as Hezbollah and Israel traded fire Wednesday, a day after six Hezbollah fighters were killed in south Lebanon and several were injured in north Israel.

A drone struck a vehicle in the southern village of Jwayya in the Tyre district and Israeli artillery shelled al-Jebbayn, Mhaybib, Zebqine and al-Naqoura. The health ministry said the strike on a motorcycle in Jwayya killed two people, and injured six others.

Tensions have soared in the past week as Iran and its allies vowed revenge for the killing, blamed on Israel, of Hamas's political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and after an Israeli strike killed Hezbollah's top military commander Fouad Shukur in Beirut's southern suburbs.

Hezbollah said six of its fighters were killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday, with the group claiming cross-border attacks and low-flying Israeli warplanes breaking the sound barrier over Beirut.

Hamas ally Hezbollah on Tuesday congratulated Yahya Sinwar on his selection as the Palestinian militant group's new political chief following the killing last week of his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh.

Sinwar's appointment affirms that "the enemy... has failed to achieve its objectives" by killing Hamas leaders and officials, a Hezbollah statement said.

Low-flying Israeli military aircraft violently broke the sound barrier over Beirut Tuesday ahead of a speech by Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

The National News Agency said "Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier... over the capital and in a number of areas."

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday stressed that his group will respond to Israel’s killing of its military chief Fouad Shukur “whatever the consequences may be.”

U.N. peacekeepers on the Israeli-Lebanese border have never been more crucial, the force's global chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix said Tuesday, as fears soared of an escalation in the Middle East.

Worry has grown of a wider regional conflict, especially after the killing, blamed on Israel, of a top Hamas leader in Iran and an Israeli air strike that killed a Hezbollah commander in the Beirut southern suburbs last week.

Air France said Tuesday that its flights and that of its low-cost subsidiary Transavia to Beirut will be suspended through at least Thursday because of fears that the Gaza war could spread.

The resumption of flights to Lebanon's capital, which have been halted since July 29, "will be subject to a new assessment of the local situation," the airline told AFP.

Caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib on Tuesday said the Lebanese government is trying to prevent Hezbollah from launching a harsh response against Israel that might trigger a wide war.