An Israeli drone struck Monday a car in the southern town of Bint Jbeil seriously wounding a Hezbollah official as Israeli warplanes bombed the southern villages of Tayr Harfa, al-Odaisseh, al-Khiam, Marwahin, al-Jebbayn and Maroun al-Rass.

The strikes came as tensions across the Middle East grow with the Israel-Hamas war, a drone attack last month that killed three U.S. troops in northeastern Jordan near the Syrian border, and attacks by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels on vessels passing through the Red Sea.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah met Monday with leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Ziyad al-Nakhala.

Nasrallah discussed with Nakhala the latest developments in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and on other fronts, Hezbollah said in a statement.

Israeli forces overnight shelled the southern Lebanese border village of Houla, killing one person and wounding nine as they left a mosque after prayers, state-run National News Agency reported.

The agency said that in addition to the artillery shelling, a drone fired a missile toward the mosque.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has held meetings in Lebanon with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

In his talks with Mikati, Abdollahian stressed “the need for all efforts to come together to reach a halt to the Israeli aggression against Gaza and to secure fair solutions for all of the region’s countries.”

Israel conducted fresh strikes on southern Gaza's overcrowded border town of Rafah on Friday, where more than a million displaced Palestinians have sought shelter, with key backer the United States warning of a looming "disaster".

The Israeli military told AFP on Thursday that its aircraft struck a "Hezbollah commander" in south Lebanon, claiming he was involved in cross-border rocket attacks.

The confirmation came after a Lebanese security source said earlier that a military official of Hezbollah was "seriously wounded" in an Israeli air strike on a car in the city of Nabatiyeh in the heart of south Lebanon.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian will arrive Friday in Beirut, Iran’s ambassador said.

Caretaker PM Najib Mikati met Thursday with a French delegation comprising the foreign ministry’s political affairs director, the defense ministry’s international and strategic relations director, the deputy head of the N. Africa and Mideast dept. at the foreign ministry, and the French ambassador to Lebanon.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that Washington is still exerting diplomatic efforts to resolve the border conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in a peaceful way.

Security forces fired tear gas on Thursday to disperse hundreds of protesters, mainly retired soldiers, who tried to break through the fence leading to the Grand Serail in downtown Beirut.

The retired members of the armed forces gathered at Beirut's Riad al-Solh Square to protest their low salaries and blocked the roads leading to the Grand Serail where Cabinet convened Thursday.