U.S. officials believe that Lebanon is currently required to take steps to curb Hezbollah's influence and the U.S. administration will inform Lebanese Army chief Rodolphe Haykal tomorrow of its dissatisfaction with his performance, a U.S. source told Al-Arabiya on Thursday night.

Israel renewed its strikes on Beirut on Thursday, as it threatened to seize territory in Lebanon if Hezbollah did not stop its attacks.

The Israeli military announced "a wave of strikes targeting Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure across Beirut", with AFPTV footage showing dark smoke rising into the sky above two districts in the heart of Beirut.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that he had warned Lebanon's government that Israel would act to disarm Hezbollah "on the ground" if Beirut failed to do so.

"I told the Lebanese government a few days ago: you are playing with fire if you continue allowing Hezbollah to operate, in violation of your commitment to disarm it," Netanyahu told a press conference.

Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir noted Thursday that "the Lebanese government is not imposing its authority" against Hezbollah and that his army "will do so.'

An Israeli strike on a campus of Lebanon's public university killed two academics.

The director of the faculty of sciences at the south Beirut campus of the Lebanese University, Hussein Bazzi, and professor Mortada Srour were killed by an Israeli drone strike on the university, the National News Agency said.

Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji on Thursday summoned the Iranian charge d'affaires in Lebanon, after the Lebanese government decided to protest a declaration by Iran's Revolutionary Guard about a joint operation with Hezbollah against Israel.

The Israeli military said it had begun a wave of strikes across Beirut on Thursday, after it warned residents of a central neighborhood of the Lebanese capital it would target a building there.

"The IDF has begun a wave of strikes targeting Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure across Beirut," a military statement said, as AFPTV footage showed a strike hitting the central Beirut building in Bashoura.

Missiles hit a building in the Beirut neighborhood of Bashoura, near the center of the city, on Thursday, after the Israeli military issued a warning of an incoming strike.

An AFPTV live broadcast showed dark smoke rising into the sky above the heart of the Lebanese capital, and an apparent fire started by the first missile impact.

Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei thanked Tehran's allied armed groups across the region including in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen on Thursday.

"I also express my sincere gratitude to the fighters of the 'Resistance Front'," Khamenei said in a statement read by a news anchor on state television, referring to the Houthis in Yemen, Lebanon's Hezbollah as well as allied groups in Iraq.

When an air strike hit their Beirut neighborhood, people were angry with Israel, but they reserved their deepest rage for Hezbollah, for dragging Lebanon into the Middle East war.

Israel and the United States launched huge strikes on Iran on February 28, killing its supreme leader and sparking a massive retaliatory campaign.