There is “neither real information nor serious indications that a broad war will erupt in the region, contrary to what was widely circulated on Wednesday,” al-Joumhouria newspaper quoted a “credible” senior Lebanese leader as saying.

“There is exaggerated intimidation aimed at pressuring Hezbollah to deter it from responding to the assassination of its military chief Fouad Shukur in Beirut’s southern suburbs,” the top leader told the daily in remarks published Thursday.

China on Thursday urged its citizens in Lebanon to leave "as soon as possible", according to an embassy statement, the day after an Israeli strike in the country killed a senior Palestinian militant.

"Recently, the situation on the Lebanese-Israeli border has continued to be tense, and security circumstances in Lebanon are severe and complex," China's embassy in Beirut said.

Israeli warplanes waged overnight into Thursday a series of strikes on more than ten southern border towns and a town near Sarafand.

The Israeli army said it hit Hezbollah targets there, including weapons depots, military buildings and a launchpad.

An Israeli strike in the southern coastal city of Sidon killed a Fatah official on Wednesday, a senior member of the Palestinian group and a security source said.

It marked the first such reported attack on Fatah, the movement led by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, in more than 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Hezbollah.

Caretaker Energy Minister Walid Fayyad has rejected that Électricité du Liban chairman Kamal Hayek be held responsible for the latest blackout in the country, after caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati referred the file to the judiciary.

"I was surprised with what happened … I wasn’t expecting this injustice represented in the measure taken by Mikati and he has no right to pin the blame on a single party,” Fayyad said in an interview with MTV.

An Israeli drone targeted Wednesday a car in the city of Sidon near the Ain el-Helweh camp, hours after another drone strike on a car in the southern town of Beit Leef killed a Hezbollah fighter.

In response to the Beit Leef strike, Hezbollah targeted the Hadb Yaroun post in northern Israel with a suicide drone and the Ramim barracks with Katyusha rockets.

MPs Alain Aoun and Simon Abi Ramia, who have been recently expelled from the Free Patriotic Movement, might soon form a new parliamentary bloc, ad-Diyar newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The two lawmakers may be joined by MP Ibrahim Kanaan, who was recently referred to the FPM’s so-called council of elders over alleged violations, the daily added.

Hezbollah said it launched suicide drones Wednesday at an Israeli military base in Ami'ad, near Lake Tiberias, and salvos of rockets on "a logistic military base" in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights in response to the latest airstrikes on the Bekaa.

An Israeli army spokesman accused Hezbollah of "firing indiscriminately at Israeli civilians" in the Golan's Katzrin, warning that Israel will act to "protect its citizens," as Israeli media reported that more than 50 rockets hit a number of private homes in the Golan Heights.

David Hale, the former U.S. under secretary of state for political affairs and ex-ambassador to Lebanon, has said that he is not optimistic about the ongoing negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said that Israel’s military is shifting its attention from Gaza to the border with Lebanon.

Touring northern Israel on Tuesday, Gallant said Israel has scaled back its activities in Gaza, where it has been fighting a war against Hamas for nearly a year, and turned its focus to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.