Israel carried out a rare strike Tuesday on Beirut's southern suburbs that killed at least four civilians -- two children and two women -- and wounded around 74 others, raising the stakes in the escalating tensions with Hezbollah.

The Israeli military said the strike targeted and killed Hezbollah's "most senior" military commander, Fouad Shukur, accusing him of being behind the deaths of 12 children and teens in a weekend rocket strike on a Druze village in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, as well as the deaths of numerous Israeli civilians hit in other strikes.

Following the release of the Technique Superieur (TS) vocational and technical exam results and the first round of the Baccalaureate II examination results, UNRWA congratulated Tuesday all students who passed. "Their hard work leading to excellent accomplishments is truly commendable," UNRWA said in a statement.

Siblin Training Center students scored a 100 per cent pass rate, with 60 per cent of students passing with distinction, the statement said.

Hezbollah on Tuesday said that it is taking the latest Israeli threats seriously and that it is “fully prepared” for any Israeli strike linked to Saturday’s deadly rocket fire on the Golan’s Majdal Shams.

“The enemy’s talk of a harsh and limited strike does not concern us at all, because it will be an aggression regardless of its magnitude,” a senior Hezbollah leader told Al-Jazeera television.

Three citizens were lightly wounded Tuesday in an Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of the town of Jibsheet near Nabatieh, as diplomats raced to contain escalation between Israel and Hezbollah following a deadly strike that killed 12 youths in the annexed Golan Heights.

Hezbollah said it targeted a command center in Beit Hillel with Katyusha rockets in retaliation to the strike on Jibsheet. Israel's state media said one person was killed in the rocket attack in HaGoshrim near Beit Hillel.

Some residents of the Golan Heights village where a rocket killed 12 youths over the weekend protested Monday the visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials expressing condolences.

Netanyahu is weighing Israel's response to the attack it blames on Hezbollah, which in a rare move has denied having a role. The prime minister laid a wreath, expressed his shock and said the local Druze community has paid a heavy price. He met with representatives of victims' families.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held phone talks with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Monday to discuss the tensions between Israel and Lebanon following the deadly rocket strike on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

The State Department said Blinken in the call with Herzog “emphasized the importance of preventing escalation of the conflict and discussed efforts to reach a diplomatic solution to allow citizens on both sides of the border between Israel and Lebanon to return home."

Lebanon’s Druze leader Walid Jumblat has blasted as “lies” Israel’s accusations that Hezbollah was behind the rocket that killed 12 youngsters in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

“Where did they bring these proofs and arguments from?” Jumblat added, in an interview on Al-Jazeera television.

Hezbollah launched Monday "dozens of Katyusha rockets" at an Israeli military site following the "assassination" of two of its fighters.

The pair were killed in an air raid on a road between Shaqra and the southern border town of Mays al-Jabal.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday vowed to "hit the enemy hard" after rocket fire -- which Israel said came from Hezbollah -- killed 12 young people in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and again raised fears that the war in Gaza will spread.

The Israeli army said Saturday that it shot down a drone over the sea that had crossed from Lebanon, as Israeli media reports said the UAV, likely unarmed, was headed for the Karish offshore gas field.