An uneasy calm settled over the south on Thursday morning after a day of heavy exchanges of fire.

At a funeral procession in Bint Jbeil on Wednesday, Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah told the ceremony that "no crime against civilians will pass without the enemy paying the price".

Australia is investigating Hezbollah's claim that Ali Bazzi, who was killed in an airstrike on Tuesday in Bint Jbeil, was one of its fighters.

Australia's acting foreign minister Mark Dreyfus said that Ali Bazzi and his brother Ibrahim Bazzi are both Australian citizens.

The former president of Lebanon's tiny Jewish community, who had pushed for the rehabilitation of Beirut's abandoned synagogue, has died, his family and the community's lawyer told AFP on Wednesday.

Isaac Arazi, 80, who headed the Lebanese Jewish Community Council, "died on Tuesday and was buried the same day," lawyer Bassem el-Hout said.

Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid Bukhari told Maronite Patriarch Beshra al-Rahi in their latets meeting that “an effective international drive will begin in February in order to secure the election of a president” for Lebanon, an informed source said.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri is holding consultations with political leaders inside the country and foreign parties in order to re-activate the presidential election file, media reports said.

The Bnashii meeting between Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh and the head of the Democratic Gathering MP Taymour Jumblat has failed to reach an agreement on a mechanism for the appointment in Cabinet of a new army chief of staff and two military council members, media reports said.

“The Marada Movement, according to MP Tony Franjieh, is raising question marks over the principle of appointments amid the absence of a president,” al-Liwaa newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Hezbollah waged Wednesday a combined drone, rocket and artillery attack on Israeli forces and vehicles in the occupied Shebaa Farms, attacked an Israeli force in Dhaira and targeted the Hadb al-Bustan post and Kherbet Ma'ar with Burkan rockets.

The group also attacked a "new command center" near the Israeli naval base in Ras al-Naqoura as the Israeli army said it has intercepted eight out of 18 missiles launched from Lebanon towards the Western Galilee.

An Israeli air strike on a south Lebanon border town killed a Hezbollah fighter, the group said Wednesday, with state media reporting two of his relatives were also killed.

The border between Lebanon and Israel has seen escalating exchanges of fire, mainly between the Israeli army and Hamas ally Hezbollah, since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7.

Israel's military said an anti-tank missile fired by Hezbollah wounded nine soldiers as they rescued a civilian who was injured in another cross-border strike.

One of the soldiers was in a "serious condition", the army said.

Hezbollah carried out Tuesday more than eight attacks on Israeli posts, including an attack with Burkan rockets on the Israeli Zebdine post in the occupied Shebaa farms.

Israel's army for its part shelled and fired heavy machinegun bursts towards the Zebdine Farm and its artillery shelled several border towns including Jabal Blat, Blida, Mhaibib, Mays al-Jabal, al-Khiam, Bestra, al-Naqoura, al-Khraybeh and al-Majidiyah.