Senior Hezbollah official Sheikh Nabil Qaouq said Thursday at an event in south Lebanon that his group is “prepared for the possibility of expanding the war” with Israel, a day after the fiercest escalation since the beginning of clashes.

Kataeb Party leader MP Sami Gemayel on Thursday stressed that “all the Israeli excuses for targeting civilians are rejected and condemned,” hours after ten Lebanese civilians were killed in Israeli airstrikes across south Lebanon.

Former Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat on Thursday said that the proper implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006) would prevent “further escalation” between Israel and Hezbollah.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned Thursday the escalation as more Israeli strikes were reported in south Lebanon.

"At a time where we are insisting on calm and call all sides to not escalate, we find the Israeli enemy extending its aggression," read a statement from Mikati's office.

Israeli warplanes carried out Thursday several airstrikes on Wadi Slouqi in south Lebanon as the civilian death toll from Wednesday's airstrikes rose to 10.

Israel's air force also struck the border towns of Labbouneh, Majdal Selm, Maroun al-Rass, Blida and Houla. The Israeli military said Thursday's strikes targeted Hezbollah infrastructure and launch posts.

Thousands of people gathered in the Lebanese capital Wednesday to commemorate the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri and urge his son Saad to make a political comeback.

Waving the pale-blue flags of Saad Hariri's political party the al-Mustaqbal Movement, the crowd clapped and cheered as he paid his respects at his father's tomb in central Beirut.

Rockets from Lebanon targeted the Israeli army's northern headquarters in Safad on Wednesday morning, killing a female soldier and wounding seven others, Israeli reports said.

Another Israeli soldier was found dead later in the day, raising the death toll to two, reports said.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Tuesday that “intimidation” and offers of “political gains” will not convince Hezbollah to halt its attacks on Israel if the war on Gaza does not stop.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Tuesday snapped back at the Free Patriotic Movement over the issue of the powers of the caretaker Cabinet during the ongoing presidential vacuum.

Ex-PM and al-Mustaqbal Movement leader Saad Hariri met Tuesday at the Center House in Beirut with American Ambassador Lisa Johnson and Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan.

Johnson told reporters as she left the Center House that the meeting with Hariri was "excellent".