Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has ruled out a broad Israeli war on Lebanon while stressing the need to “stop the genocidal war that Israel is waging on the Palestinian people.”

In an interview with the Milan-based Avvenire newspaper, which is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, Berri added that “Lebanon does not need new agreements to restore calm and stability in the (southern) border area,” noting that “there is a resolution issued by the U.N. Security Council carrying the number 1701 and Lebanon is committed to all its stipulations.”

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Friday met with Vladimir Safronkov, the Russian foreign minister’s special envoy for Lebanon.

“The meeting tackled the situation in south Lebanon and Gaza and the stalled peace process,” the National News Agency said.

Hezbollah’s top lawmaker Mohammad Raad on Friday noted that the “course” of his group’s conflict with Israel will become clear “within a few days,” in an apparent reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the U.S.

“Let us be patient for a few days to see the prospects and the atmosphere that we will move forward in. We will not hesitate or give up our resistant choice and we will not weaken in the face of the arrogance of tyranny and occupation,” Raad added.

"Without dialogue, there will be no president," pro-Hezbollah al-Akhbar newspaper quoted Speaker Nabih Berri as saying.

The daily reported Friday that Berri thinks that "it's much easier today" as all parties, except one - the Lebanese Forces -, have agreed to participate in his dialogue initiative, including the Free Patriotic Movement.

Israeli artillery shelled Friday the southern border town of Houla and the outskirts of Kfarshouba and Kfarhamam, a day after Israeli strikes killed at least five people in Lebanon.

Hezbollah for its part attacked Friday, for the first time since war broke out, Abirim, Neve Ziv and Manot in north Israel in response to Israeli attacks on civilians in south Lebanon.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea accused Thursday the so-called Axis of Defiance and the Free Patriotic Movement of obstructing change in Lebanon.

The FPM prioritizes its "narrow interests", Geagea charged, adding that the FPM members seek political and personal gains "at the expense of Lebanon's interest."

Israeli drones targeted Thursday a region between Yater and Zebqine while artillery shelled the outskirts of Yater.

Drones had targeted earlier on Thursday two cars in east and south Lebanon, killing a Jamaa Islamiya commander in the village of Ghazzeh in Bekaa, and a Hezbollah fighter in Jbal el-Botm in the Tyre district, near Zebqine.

Israeli drones targeted Thursday two cars in east and south Lebanon, killing a Jamaa Islamiya commander in the village of Ghazzeh in Bekaa.

The other drone strike targeted a car in Jbal el-Botm in the Tyre district, near Zebqine.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday pledged that his group’s fighters would wipe out the Israeli army’s tanks should they invade Lebanon in any future war.

Commenting on the Israeli army’s disclosure that it is suffering from a shortage of tanks due to the war in Gaza and the conflict with Hezbollah, Nasrallah said: “If your tanks come to Lebanon and its south, you will not suffer from a shortage of tanks, because you will no longer have tanks.”

An Israeli drone strike targeted a motorcycle on the Kfar Tebnit-Khardali road on Tuesday, killing two Syrian nationals.

Heavy-caliber artillery shells meanwhile targeted the outskirts of the southern town of Deir Mimas.