Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned Thursday the escalation as more Israeli strikes were reported in south Lebanon.

"At a time where we are insisting on calm and call all sides to not escalate, we find the Israeli enemy extending its aggression," read a statement from Mikati's office.

Israeli warplanes carried out Thursday several airstrikes on Wadi Slouqi in south Lebanon as the civilian death toll from Wednesday's airstrikes rose to 10.

Israel's air force also struck the border towns of Labbouneh, Majdal Selm, Maroun al-Rass, Blida and Houla. The Israeli military said Thursday's strikes targeted Hezbollah infrastructure and launch posts.

At least 10 people, mostly civilians, were killed on Wednesday in Israeli strikes on south Lebanon, while the Israeli army said it lost a soldier in cross-border rocket fire.

While the rocket attack was not immediately claimed, the exchanges of fire -- and the worst single-day civilian death toll in Lebanon since cross-border hostilities began in October -- raised fears of a broader conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

The slow-simmering cross-border conflict between Lebanon's Hezbollah and Israeli forces escalated Wednesday, reviving fears that the daily clashes could expand into an all-out war.

A rocket fired from Lebanon struck the northern Israeli town of Safed, killing a 20-year-old female soldier and wounding at least eight people.

The civilian death toll from two Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon has risen to 10, Lebanese state media reported Thursday, making the previous day the deadliest one in more than four months of cross-border exchanges.

Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate for the strikes, which hit in the city of Nabatiyeh and a village in southern Lebanon, just hours after projectiles from Lebanon killed an Israeli soldier.

Thousands of people gathered in the Lebanese capital Wednesday to commemorate the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri and urge his son Saad to make a political comeback.

Waving the pale-blue flags of Saad Hariri's political party the al-Mustaqbal Movement, the crowd clapped and cheered as he paid his respects at his father's tomb in central Beirut.

Rockets from Lebanon targeted the Israeli army's northern headquarters in Safad on Wednesday morning, killing a female soldier and wounding seven others, Israeli reports said.

Another Israeli soldier was found dead later in the day, raising the death toll to two, reports said.

Cyprus has said it is in discussions with Lebanon over the return of 116 Syrian migrants rescued off its coast after Beirut refused to accept them back.

The migrants were rescued in international waters 30 nautical miles off Cyprus at the weekend after departing Lebanon by boat, Cypriot officials said.

Israeli municipal elections in areas near the Lebanese border and the Gaza Strip are expected to be postponed from February 27 to November 19, after a parliamentary committee recommended it Tuesday.

"The internal affairs committee of the Knesset (parliament) has decided to support the interior minister's proposal to postpone the elections to November 19, 2024 in the nine areas evacuated by the government decision," it said in a statement.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Tuesday that “intimidation” and offers of “political gains” will not convince Hezbollah to halt its attacks on Israel if the war on Gaza does not stop.