According to Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri are capable of preventing the Gaza war from spreading to Lebanon.

In a meeting Friday with French Ambassador Hervé Magro, Geagea stressed that a parliamentary recommendation or a governmental decision could spare Lebanon the trouble of war.

The Lebanese Forces has informed relevant parties that it is willing to provide a cover for a parliamentary session aimed at extending the term of Army Commander General Joseph Aoun, media reports said on Friday.

The Israeli army announced Friday that its northern front with Lebanon and Syria did not witness any incidents overnight, following a relatively calm day on Thursday.

The brother of a wanted Islamist was killed inside Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp on Thursday, state media said.

A young man who was "the target of an assassination operation inside the Ain al-Helweh camp died after sustaining serious wounds," Lebanon's National News Agency said.

A senior Hamas official has told The Associated Press that the Palestinian militant group had expected stronger intervention from Hezbollah in its war with Israel, in a rare public appeal to its allies in the region.

Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas' decision-making political bureau, said in an interview that "we need more" from allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, in light of an Israeli air campaign that Palestinian health officials say has killed more than 7,000 people, mostly civilians, in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Caretaker Defense Minister Maurice Slim has stormed out of a meeting with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati in connection with a dispute over the looming vacuum in the army commander post.

The Israeli army said Thursday its forces had eliminated "five Hezbollah cells" that tried to open fire from south Lebanon yesterday.

Israel later fired two artillery shells on the Ghasouna area in Blida's eastern outskirts and on the outskirts of Aita al-Shaab with phosphorus bombs, as its troops machine-gunned the forests surrounding the Ruwaisat al-Alam site in the Kfarshouba Heights and Wadi Hounin, facing Markaba.

International contacts at the highest levels were held with Lebanese authorities after caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said that Lebanon is still committed to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, a media report said.

As Israel and Hezbollah trade near-daily cross-border fire in a relatively contained tit-for-tat fire, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea considers that Hezbollah is taking the decision of war, bypassing the state.

After admitting that the opposition cannot do anything about it in an interview in L'Orient Le-Jour, Geagea called on Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati to ask all "militants" to withdraw from the border, where daily clashes are taking place.

Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh told reporters after his meeting with Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Wednesday that he is carrying on with his presidential nomination, a media report said on Thursday.