A Syrian was arrested after a shooting near the U.S. embassy in Beirut on Wednesday, the Lebanese army said, with the embassy saying its staff were safe.

The embassy, in the northern suburb of Awkar, "was subjected to gunfire by a person holding Syrian nationality," the army said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter.

Mohammad Hammoud, in his late 70s, was at home with his wife in a south Lebanon border village when Israeli bombing hit. This time, the attack was different.

"Fire broke out in front of the house... there was a strange smell... we had trouble breathing," he told AFP by telephone from his village of Hula.

A global human rights group said that Israel has used white phosphorus incendiary shells on residential buildings in at least five towns and villages in conflict-hit southern Lebanon, possibly harming civilians and violating international law, in a report published Wednesday.

Human Rights Watch said in its report that there was no evidence of burn injuries due to white phosphorus in Lebanon, but that researchers had "heard accounts indicating possible respiratory damage."

Israeli army chief Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi has toured fire-affected areas in Kiryat Shmona and said Israel "was approaching a point where a decision will have to be made".

Munitions fired from Lebanon by Hezbollah on Monday evening had ignited several blazes across northern Israel.

The Progressive Socialist Party kicked off Tuesday a series of meetings with the Lebanese political parties to discuss the ongoing presidential crisis.

In Maarab, a PSP delegation comprising MPs Taymour Jumblat, Marwan Hamadeh, Akram Shehayyeb and Wael Abou Faour met with Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, in the presence of MPs Ghassan Hasbani and Nazih Matta.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has called for “a dialogue tackling issued related to economy and the political system alongside the discussions over the presidency.”

“Doesn’t dialogue over a president necessitate that we carry out a dialogue over three main issues, which are structural reforms in the Lebanese economy and model; the defense strategy and the meaning of neutralizing Lebanon; and the Lebanese system in terms of continuing the implementation of the Taif Accord and fixing its gaps through consensus among all Lebanese,” Bassil said in an interview on LBCI television.

Over the past days, Lebanon has received diplomatic messages carrying a threat of an imminent Israeli strike, a media report said.

“Most international envoys carried their concerns over the seriousness of the Israeli threat, but the most notable message came from the British side, which specified a mid-June date for the Israeli strike,” al-Akhbar newspaper quoted “prominent sources” as saying.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said the Israeli military should invade Lebanon and push "hundreds of thousands of Lebanese" away from the border area.

Hezbollah has traded regular cross-border fire with Israel since the Gaza war began almost eight months ago, but clashes have intensified in recent days.

On the same scorching day last month, Israeli troops fought street battles with Hamas militants in Gaza, its fighter jets struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and soldiers exchanged fire with Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank.

As the war in the Gaza Strip nears its ninth month, Israel's military is getting pulled deeper into conflicts on multiple fronts and risks becoming overstretched, analysts told AFP.

Two Israeli drone strikes targeted Tuesday a car on the road between Libbaya and Yohmor in West Bekaa, deep inside Lebanon, and a motorbike in the coastal border town of Naqoura, killing one person, the latest in a slew of targeted drone attacks on vehicles in recent days.

"The strike targeting a motorcycle in Naqoura killed one person and wounded another," the National News Agency (NNA) said after earlier reporting an "enemy drone strike" in the area.