Italy and Israel announced this week that a new round of talks between Lebanon and Israel will take place in Rome in mid-July.

The two sides had previously met for five rounds of U.S.-sponsored talks in Washington aimed at ending the war between Israel and Hezbollah and paving the way for peace.

Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri on Thursday met with a visiting Iranian delegation, which included the Deputy Foreign Minister for Consular and Parliamentary Affairs and Iranians Abroad, Vahid Jalalzadeh, accompanied by Assistant Foreign Minister and Director General for West Asia and North Africa Affairs, Mehdi Shoushtari.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said anew that Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa has promised to help on the issue of Hezbollah in Lebanon.

A U.S. military delegation will arrive in Beirut in the coming days to coordinate the ground implementation of a framework agreement that calls for Hezbollah's disarmament and a gradual Israeli withdrawal from occupied Lebanese territory.

U.S. Ambassador Michel Issa said Thursday that preparations were underway to implement the Israeli withdrawal from the pilot zones, as he met with President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Speaker Nabih Berri, ahead of a new round of talks between Lebanon and Israel this month in Rome.

Lebanon demands Israel's withdrawal from two "pilot zones" in the south as a condition for participating in the next round of direct negotiations in Rome next week, a diplomatic source familiar with the talks told AFP on Wednesday.

The two sides had previously met for five rounds of U.S.-sponsored talks in Washington aimed at ending the war between Israel and Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and paving the way for peace.

The Israeli military on Wednesday said its troops had seized a Hezbollah militant during an encounter in southern Lebanon a day earlier and transferred him to Israel for questioning.

The militant was captured in the Bint Jbeil area on Tuesday, where Israeli troops clashed with Hezbollah fighters.

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz said, in a statement on Thursday, that the Israeli military's operations in Lebanon were a response to attacks by Hezbollah.

"The terrorist organization Hezbollah has attacked Israel twice on its own initiative," Katz said.

Amnesty International on Thursday accused Israel of wiping out families in its strikes on Lebanon during its war with Hezbollah, calling for these attacks to be investigated as war crimes.

Amnesty analyzed three strikes on civilian homes between March 6 and 13, in which 24 civilians were killed, 12 of them children.

An Israeli strike on southern Lebanon killed two people on Wednesday, Lebanese state media reported, the latest attack despite a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

"Two young men were martyred after being targeted by an enemy drone... while they were walking in the vicinity of Ghandour Hospital in Nabatieh al-Fawqa," Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said, two days after a strike on the same town killed four civilians including a school principal.

Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said Wednesday that "there is no solution other than an Israeli withdrawal in return for the Lebanese Army's deployment south of the Litani."