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.

Hezbollah targeted Thursday three military posts and a command center in northern Israel as Israeli artillery shelled several border towns in south Lebanon.

Hezbollah said in a statement that it had attacked the Jalil command center in Kiryat Shmona, the Branit post, soldiers in Metula, and the Radar post in the occupied Shebaa Farms. An officer and two soldiers were wounded in the Kiryat Shmona attack, the Israeli army radio said.

Former Lebanese ambassador to the U.N. Nawaf Salam, whose name was once floated as a potential PM candidate, has been elected as the head of the International Court of Justice for a three-year period.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati called Salam and congratulated him on the new post.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has accused Hezbollah of seeking to “obtain the presidency and Lebanon’s government in return for withdrawing weapons from the border” with Israel.

A civilian was killed Wednesday in a drone airstrike on a house in the southern border town of al-Khiam. Two other civilians were injured, media reports said.

Israeli warplanes had earlier at dawn targeted al-Wazzani water pumps, after two airstrikes overnight on the southern border towns of Houla and Bani Hayyan.

Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea has long opposed electing a president through dialogue. "All possible dialogues have led to nowhere," Geagea told MTV on Monday night.

Geagea revealed that MPs from his party have been talking to Amal MPs but that all dialogues were "fruitless," accusing Hezbollah and its allies of clinging to their presidential candidate, Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh. "This won't be a real dialogue," he said.

Kataeb Party chief Sami Gemayel has accused Hezbollah of seeking to “legalize its weapons through a certain alignment and a loyal president.”