Senior Lebanese officials have defended procedures at Beirut airport during a tour for journalists and diplomats, a day after a British daily alleged Hezbollah was storing weapons at the facility.

The accusations came during escalating exchanges of fire and bellicose rhetoric between Lebanon's Hezbollah movement and Israeli forces, which have engaged in near-daily fire since war in Gaza began.

The prospect of a full-scale war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group terrifies people on both sides of the border, but some see it as an inevitable fallout from Israel's ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza, particularly as cease-fire negotiations have faltered.

Such a war could be the most destructive either side has ever experienced.

By Asher Kaufman, University of Notre Dame

Months of relentless exchanges between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah have seen mass civilian evacuations and widespread death, injury and destruction.

After more than eight months of low-scale conflict, Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah are threatening all-out war.

The United States and the international community are lobbying for calm and hopeful for a diplomatic solution. They have not been successful so far and time for a political settlement could be expiring.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Israel during a Monday meeting with its defense minister to avoid further escalation in Lebanon as they discussed efforts to reach a deal to free hostages in Gaza.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was on a visit to Washington seeking to reaffirm the value of ties with Israel's top ally, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly chastised the United States for what he said was a delay in weapons deliveries.

Israeli artillery shelled Monday the southern town of al-Taybeh, targeting members of the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee, as they tried to extinguish a fire following an Israeli drone attack on the town.

The shelling injured a member of the Islamic Health Committee in the chest, the National News Agency said.

Tensions engulfed the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Helweh in Sidon on Monday after a member of the Palestinian National Security Force was shot dead.

Annahar newspaper identified the slain member as Yassine Akl, saying he was killed in “the Ras al-Ahmar area that is controlled by Islamist militants.”

Yarden Gil opens a reinforced metal door to enter the northern Israeli kindergarten where she works, which doubles as an underground shelter against rockets fired by Lebanon's Hezbollah.

She is among tens of thousands displaced from the border area by the ever-present threat of Hezbollah attacks and, increasingly, the fear of an all-out war.

There are continuous Arab efforts aimed at pacifying the situation between Israel and Hezbollah in light of the latest threats and fears, an informed source told Kuwait’s al-Anba newspaper.

As for the Israeli threats against Lebanon, another informed source told al-Anba that “Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is threatening on the Lebanese front with the aim of pressing the U.S. administration to release the needed weapons deal, which according to Israel would speed up the control of Gaza.”

The Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, kicked off a visit to Lebanon on Sunday, amid escalation on Lebanon’s southern front with Israel.

Parolin is scheduled to take part in a “broad spiritual and national meeting” in Bkerki that has been called for by Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi.