Israeli warplanes overflew Lebanon at low altitude on Thursday night and missiles were reportedly seen crossing the Lebanese airspace during an airstrike on the suburbs of the Syrian regions of Damascus and Homs.

The sounds of the fighter jets and missiles sparked panic in the Lebanese capital and other Lebanese regions.

Hours after Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah announced that a ship carrying diesel from Iran to Lebanon would arrive within hours, President Michel Aoun's office announced that U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea told him the United States would help Lebanon get electricity from Jordan and facilitate the flow of Egyptian gas through Jordan and Syria to northern Lebanon.

Shea told Aoun that negotiations are ongoing with the World Bank to pay for Egyptian gas and to fix cables and pipelines that will be used, according to the statement.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday announced that a first ship carrying diesel and other essential goods would sail from Iran to Lebanon "within hours," warning the U.S. and Israel against targeting it.

President Michel Aoun’s adviser for Russian affairs, ex-MP Amal Abu Zeid, has held talks in Russia with Mikhail Bogdanov -- the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister and Presidential Special Envoy for the Middle East and Africa.

Families laid to rest Wednesday victims of a fuel tank blast that killed at least 28 people in northern Lebanon amid anger and sorrow over the crisis-hit country's latest tragedy.

Residents from the southern city of Nabatiyeh overnight intercepted a patrol belonging to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), state-run National News Agency reported on Wednesday.

Optimism has surged on the possibility of forming a new government in the coming days while most Lebanese newspapers have published incomplete draft cabinet line-ups.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has stressed that his party rejects the smuggling of fuel and other subsidized goods from Lebanon to Syria, as he accused Washington of waging an “economic war” on the country.

“We reject smuggling and we do not accept it. We are not covering anyone. Let anyone come forward and say that Hizbullah has intervened for the release of anyone arrested by the Lebanese Army, the Lebanese security forces or the Lebanese judiciary on charges of smuggling diesel and gasoline to Syria,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech marking the ninth night of the Ashura religious commemorations.

Gunshots and a shoulder-fired rocket have targeted a petrol station in the Beirut southern suburb of al-Laylaki, the latest in a series of incidents rattling motorists lining up in long petrol queues.

The NNA said the army deployed in the area after several people were wounded in the shooting, but did not provide more details.

Hospitals struggled Tuesday to operate amid life-threatening power cuts and telecom outages in the north Lebanon region of Akkar where a fuel tank explosion killed at least 28 people this week.

Lights and phone lines went out across the impoverished and marginalized region that has long suffered from an ailing power grid but that is now grappling with an unprecedented crisis amid severe diesel shortages.