U.S. envoy Tom Barrack met Thursday night with officials at the French presidential palace to discuss the situations in Lebanon and Syria, a French diplomatic source said.

Free Patriotic Movement leader Jebran Bassil said Friday there should be a quid pro quo for Hezbollah's disarmament after he met President Joseph Aoun in Baabda.

According to Bassil, it goes without saying that Israel must in return withdraw from occupied Lebanese territories, halt its attacks and its exploitation of Lebanese natural resources - including water, oil, and gas.

Hezbollah began a strategic review following its latest war with Israel and is considering scaling back its role as an armed movement without disarming completely, media reports published Friday said.

U.S. envoy Tom Barrack has called the ceasefire that ended the war between Israel and the Hezbollah in November “a total failure” because Israel is still bombing Lebanon and Hezbollah is accused of violating the agreement’s terms.

Hezbollah members and supporters held a funeral Thursday in Beirut's southern suburbs for the former bodyguard and head of security of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the group's longtime leader.

Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli strike in south Beirut last year, while his former bodyguard Abou Ali Khalil was killed in Iran during last month's Israel-Iran war, along with his son Mahdi.

A series of Israeli airstrikes targeted Thursday areas in south Lebanon between Yahmor al-Shqif and Deir Seryan, and the outskirts of Zawtar el-Sharqiyeh and other areas in the Jezzine region.

The Israeli army said it struck "military sites, including weapons depots, military structures, and terrorist infrastructure" of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Their presence and activities in the area constitute, according to Israel, a "flagrant violation" of the ceasefire agreement, which came into effect on November 27 to end over a year of hostilities.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced Thursday sanctions on seven senior officials and one entity associated with the Hezbollah-controlled financial institution Al-Qard Al-Hassan.

The U.S. Treasury said the seven officials have served in senior management roles for Al-Qard Al-Hassan and have facilitated the evasion of U.S. sanctions, enabling Hezbollah’s access to the formal financial system. "Today’s action underscores Treasury’s commitment to disrupting Hezbollah’s sanctions evasion schemes and supporting efforts by the new Lebanese government to limit the terrorist group’s influence, particularly as entities like AQAH continue to undermine the already fragile Lebanese economy," the U.S. Department of the Treasury said.

An Israeli drone targeted Thursday a car on the Khaldeh highway at Beirut’s southern entrance, as the Israeli army said it hit a "terrorist" working for Iran.

The Israeli army said it "eliminated a terrorist responsible for smuggling weapons and advancing terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops, on behalf of the Iranian Quds Force", the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Sources from the presidential panel drafting Lebanon’s response to the U.S. paper have said that “the atmosphere of the discussions is very positive,” in remarks to al-Joumhouria newspaper.

Influential diplomatic sources in Beirut have voiced concern that an Israeli strike might target Hezbollah’s military infrastructure north of the Litani River in the coming weeks, with a special emphasis on the Baalbek and Hermel regions, the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported on Thursday.