Ex-PM and al-Mustaqbal Movement leader Saad Hariri held talks Monday at the Grand Serail in Beirut with caretaker PM Najib Mikati.

Mikati welcomed Hariri and hoped the Feb. 14 anniversary of the assassination of his father, ex-PM Rafik Hariri, will be "a unifying occasion that asserts the unity of the Lebanese in the face of the dangers that Lebanon is facing." He later threw a lunch banquet in Hariri's honor.

The latest visits to Lebanon and Israel by French diplomatic, military and security delegations aimed to reach a blueprint for settling the situation on the Lebanese-Israeli border, a media report said on Monday.

An Israeli drone struck Monday a car in the southern town of Bint Jbeil seriously wounding a Hezbollah official as Israeli warplanes bombed the southern villages of Tayr Harfa, al-Odaisseh, al-Khiam, Marwahin, al-Jebbayn and Maroun al-Rass.

The strikes came as tensions across the Middle East grow with the Israel-Hamas war, a drone attack last month that killed three U.S. troops in northeastern Jordan near the Syrian border, and attacks by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels on vessels passing through the Red Sea.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah met Monday with leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Ziyad al-Nakhala.

Nasrallah discussed with Nakhala the latest developments in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and on other fronts, Hezbollah said in a statement.

Iran's top diplomat warned on Saturday that a full-blown attack on Lebanon would "spell the end" of Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu during a Beirut trip, as cross-border tensions surge over the Gaza war.

Israeli forces overnight shelled the southern Lebanese border village of Houla, killing one person and wounding nine as they left a mosque after prayers, state-run National News Agency reported.

The agency said that in addition to the artillery shelling, a drone fired a missile toward the mosque.

Israeli strikes on Lebanon Saturday killed two civilians and a Hezbollah member, officials said, while security sources told AFP a senior Hamas officer had survived an assassination attempt near Sidon.

While the Israel-Lebanon violence has been largely contained to the border area, the strike on the Hamas official took place in the coastal town of Jadra, about 40 kilometers from the closest point in Israel.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has held meetings in Lebanon with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

In his talks with Mikati, Abdollahian stressed “the need for all efforts to come together to reach a halt to the Israeli aggression against Gaza and to secure fair solutions for all of the region’s countries.”

Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets at an army position in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Friday, hours after launching a salvo at northern Israel.

Friday's attack came as Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian visited Beirut, and hours after Syria said it downed two drones near Damascus that it said entered its airspace from the Golan.

Iran's foreign minister vowed after arriving in Beirut on Friday to keep supporting Hezbollah, saying Lebanon's security affects that of Iran and the region.

Hossein Amirabdollahian was welcomed by representatives of Lebanon's Hezbollah as well as the militant Palestinian group Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Iran, a main backer of the militant groups, has been calling on the U.S. to pressure Israel to stop its offensive in the Gaza Strip.