President Joseph Aoun has received an invitation from French President Emmanuel Macron to participate in a preparatory meeting for an international conference to support the Lebanese Army.

The meeting will be held in Paris on September 17 with the participation of military delegations and experts from several countries.

The Israeli army struck and shelled overnight into Wednesday the Ali al-Taher hill, the outskirts of Wadi Zebqine and a house in Nabatieh al-Fawqa.

Israeli forces also carried detonations in Hadatha and al-Mansouri.

The Israeli military said it had repatriated the remains of Sgt First Class Yehuda Katz, a soldier killed in Lebanon 44 years ago, in a joint operation with the Mossad intelligence agency.

Katz was the last Israeli soldier declared missing in the Sultan Yacoub battle against Syrian forces in eastern Lebanon in 1982.

President Joseph Aoun will head to Rome this week for talks focusing on the future of the United Nations peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, whose mandate ends this year, a Lebanese official told AFP.

The visit scheduled for Thursday comes after Italy and France said in June that they wanted to set up a multinational coalition to succeed the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

U.S. and Arab efforts, described as last-minute attempts, were made in the past hours to hand over the Ali Taher site to the Lebanese Army, but these efforts failed because Hezbollah, acting on Iranian orders, has refused to leave the area, the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported on Tuesday.

President Joseph Aoun will travel to Rome on Thursday on an official visit, the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported.

The negotiations with Israel and the security situation will be tackled in Aoun’s meeting with Pope Leo in the Vatican, the daily said.

President Joseph Aoun has admitted that the framework agreement with Israel is facing “difficulties,” but stressed that Lebanon does not want to backtrack on it.

Lebanon's judiciary decided on Tuesday to extradite a former Syrian general it detained this month following a warrant from Damascus accusing him of "killing and crimes against humanity", a judicial official said.

The official, requesting anonymity, told AFP that Lebanon's public prosecutor "decided to extradite former Syrian General Adel Issa, currently detained in Lebanon, to Syrian authorities to stand trial for crimes he is accused of committing on Syrian soil" during the rule of former president Bashar al-Assad, ousted in late 2024.

Hezbollah has not yet received a "green light" from Iran to launch operations against Israel and Washington has not given Israel the green light to carry out a large-scale operation on the Ali Taher heights, sources told Al-Arabiya’s Al-Hadath channel.

Hezbollah will defend Ali al-Taher against Israel by all means possible and will not relinquish the strategic hill, Hezbollah MP Hassan Ezzeddine vowed Tuesday, adding that the group welcomes any Iranian assistance.

Ezzeddine said Iran has established the Dahieh deterrence equation and could do the same in Ali al-Taher.