The Israeli army intercepted Thursday a drone that crossed from Lebanon over the Kiryat area.

An uneasy calm had settled over the south in the morning before Israeli airstrikes targeted the al-Salhani area - between Ramia and Marwahin - and the outskirts of Aita al-Shaab in south Lebanon.

Senior political officials have expressed optimism that the presidential election might be finalized within a few weeks, a media report said, citing “credible information.”

The United Nations' peacekeeping mission in Lebanon on Thursday called on authorities to investigate an attack in the country's south that left one of the force's members wounded.

Groups of young men in Lebanon's south -- a stronghold of the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah group, where the U.N. force had previously suffered attacks -- blocked UNIFIL patrols twice since Wednesday, it said.

Israel’s foreign minister has said Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah could be Israel’s next target.

Eli Cohen spoke a day after a Hezbollah strike wounded 11 people in northern Israel. The Iranian-backed group has fired missiles and rockets into Israel throughout the two-and-a-half month war between Israel and Hamas. Israel has responded dozens of airstrikes and artillery barrages.

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.