Hezbollah has accused Israel of hacking into CCTV cameras installed outside homes and shops in southern Lebanon and urged residents there to take the device offline.

The powerful Iran-backed armed group accused Israel of using the footage to target its fighters and urged Lebanese citizens to "disconnect the private cameras... from the Internet".

Israeli officials are stepping up threats against Hezbollah, warning that Israel is running out of patience as the two sides continue to trade fire along Israel's volatile northern border.

Benny Gantz, a member of Israel's War Cabinet, said Wednesday that if the international community and the Lebanese government don't restrain Hezbollah, Israel will. Israel's army chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said the military is in a state of high readiness and has approved plans in case it decides to open a second front in the north.

A group calling itself Lobby 1701, comprised of Israelis evacuated from their settlements near Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, have told U.S. officials in a letter that American support in a move against Hezbollah is crucial for their safe return.

The organization, representing 60,000 residents of northern Israel who were evacuated from their homes, issued a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden and the head of the U.S. National Security Council, demanding that Israel be allowed to ensure the return of the displaced residents to their homes, either through diplomatic means or via a military operation.

The Israeli army intercepted Thursday a drone that crossed from Lebanon over the Kiryat area.

An uneasy calm had settled over the south in the morning before Israeli airstrikes targeted the al-Salhani area - between Ramia and Marwahin - and the outskirts of Aita al-Shaab in south Lebanon.

Senior political officials have expressed optimism that the presidential election might be finalized within a few weeks, a media report said, citing “credible information.”

The United Nations' peacekeeping mission in Lebanon on Thursday called on authorities to investigate an attack in the country's south that left one of the force's members wounded.

Groups of young men in Lebanon's south -- a stronghold of the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah group, where the U.N. force had previously suffered attacks -- blocked UNIFIL patrols twice since Wednesday, it said.

Israel’s foreign minister has said Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah could be Israel’s next target.

Eli Cohen spoke a day after a Hezbollah strike wounded 11 people in northern Israel. The Iranian-backed group has fired missiles and rockets into Israel throughout the two-and-a-half month war between Israel and Hamas. Israel has responded dozens of airstrikes and artillery barrages.

An uneasy calm settled over the south on Thursday morning after a day of heavy exchanges of fire.

At a funeral procession in Bint Jbeil on Wednesday, Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah told the ceremony that "no crime against civilians will pass without the enemy paying the price".

Australia is investigating Hezbollah's claim that Ali Bazzi, who was killed in an airstrike on Tuesday in Bint Jbeil, was one of its fighters.

Australia's acting foreign minister Mark Dreyfus said that Ali Bazzi and his brother Ibrahim Bazzi are both Australian citizens.

The former president of Lebanon's tiny Jewish community, who had pushed for the rehabilitation of Beirut's abandoned synagogue, has died, his family and the community's lawyer told AFP on Wednesday.

Isaac Arazi, 80, who headed the Lebanese Jewish Community Council, "died on Tuesday and was buried the same day," lawyer Bassem el-Hout said.