Israel’s military spokesman on Tuesday said the army remains focused on fighting Hamas after an explosion in Beirut's southern suburbs that killed Saleh al-Arouri, a senior leader of the Islamic militant group.

The attack, blamed on Israel, has raised concerns that Lebanon’s Hezbollah could strike back in revenge.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned Israel's killing of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut's southern suburbs on Tuesday, saying the attack "aims to draw Lebanon" further into the Israel-Hamas war.

"Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the explosion in the southern suburbs of Beirut that killed and injured many," his office said in a statement.

Israel's war against Palestinian militants reached into the suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut on Tuesday, where an Israeli strike killed Hamas' deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri, the group and security officials in Lebanon said.

Lebanese state media said the assassination came in an Israeli drone strike that killed a total of six people.

The Israeli artillery shelled Tuesday the outskirts of Kfarshouba, al-Dhayra, Tayr Harfa and al-Naqoura, while Israeli warplanes struck Maroun al-Rass in south Lebanon. The Israeli army said the strike was on Hezbollah infrastructure and that the army was responding to missiles launched from Lebanon towards the Shlomi settlement.

An Israeli drone later targeted a cemetery in the town of Yaroun with two missiles.

As several thousand Israeli troops will be taken out of Gaza in the coming weeks, a senior Israeli official said Israel will be preparing for a war with Lebanon.

The official told Reuters that not all troops who will return from Gaza will go home, as some would be prepared for rotation to the northern border with Lebanon.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has dismissed reports alleging that he had proposed Hezbollah’s “implementation of Resolution 1701” in return for the election of a pro-Hezbollah president.

French army minister Sebastien Lecornu has said that the UNIFIL's mission might become "very dangerous" as he visited a French UNIFIL contingent in Deir Kifa.

Lecornu met with Army chief Joseph Aoun on Monday and discussed with him the U.N. mission and how to protect Lebanese and UNIFIL soldiers amid rising border tensions in south Lebanon.

Israel launched pre-dawn air strikes near the Syrian capital on Tuesday, state media said citing a military source, at a time of heightened regional tensions over the Gaza war.

Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Israel had targeted a military position that also housed members of Lebanon's Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, near the town of Kanaker.

Israel carried out several airstrikes in south Lebanon on Monday as its artillery struck some border towns.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said Israeli warplanes and drones bombed a house and a gas station in the border town of Kfarkila in two separate raids.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Monday stressed that the election of a president in Lebanon should not be linked to the raging war in Gaza.

“The failure to elect a president and the use of weak excuses are unacceptable,” al-Rahi said in his New Year’s Day Mass sermon.