Israeli air strikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs overnight Friday shortly after Israel's military warned residents to leave parts of the area.

An air raid hit near the Lebanese University in Hadath and another on the Burj al-Barajneh suburb.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday made his first cabinet appointment after his decisive election win, while signaling his intent to ditch the outgoing administration's policies by talking to Vladimir Putin.

Lebanese state media said the Israeli army on Friday detonated explosives planted inside houses in three border villages that have been battered by the Israel-Hezbollah war.

"Since this morning, the Israeli enemy's army has been carrying out bombing operations inside the villages of Yaroun, Aitaroun and Maroun al-Ras in the Bint Jbeil area, with the aim of destroying residential homes there," the official National News Agency said, the latest in a string of similar incidents that have impacted the flashpoint border area.

The U.N. condemned on Friday the staggering number of civilians killed in Israel's war in Gaza, saying women and children comprised nearly 70 percent of the thousands of fatalities it had managed to verify.

The United Nations rights office said it had verified 8,119 of the more than 34,500 people reportedly killed during the first six months of the war, finding "close to 70 percent to be children and women".

Hezbollah said its fighters launched missiles at an air base in central Israel on Friday, the latest attack by the Iran-backed group in more than a month of war.

Hezbollah said it "targeted the Tel Nof Air Base, south of Tel Aviv... with a salvo of advanced missiles."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to keep working to end the Gaza and Lebanon wars in his time remaining before handing over to President-elect Donald Trump, the State Department said Thursday.

"We will continue to pursue an end to the war in Gaza, an end to the war in Lebanon, a surge of humanitarian assistance (to Gaza), and that is our duty to pursue those policies right up until noon on January 20 when the president-elect takes office," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

More than 100 Lebanese lawmakers issued an appeal on Thursday to the United Nations, demanding the preservation of heritage sites in areas heavily bombed by Israel during its war with Hezbollah.

"During the devastating war on Lebanon, Israel has caused grave human rights violations and atrocities," said a letter addressed to UNESCO's chief, demanding "the protection of Lebanon's historic sites in Baalbek, Tyre, Sidon, and other invaluable landmarks currently at risk due to the escalation of the atrocities."

Lebanon's health ministry said three people were killed Thursday in an Israeli strike that targeted a car at the main entrance to the southern city of Sidon.

"The Israeli enemy's raid on a car in Sidon resulted in the deaths of three people," the ministry said in a statement.

French President Emmanuel Macron told a European leaders' gathering Thursday that the continent must assert its security independence from the United States -- and defend its "interests" over those of geopolitical rivals.

"We must not delegate forever our security to America," Macron said, arguing that returning U.S. leader Donald Trump would legitimately "defend the interests of the American people" and asking: "Are we ready to defend the interests of the European people?"

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Thursday in Jerusalem he saw prospects for ending Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon after Donald Trump was elected U.S. president.

"I believe a window has opened for putting an end to the tragedy in which Israelis, Palestinians and the entire region have been immersed since October 7" last year, Barrot told reporters alongside outgoing Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, citing Trump's "wish to see the end of the Middle East's endless wars" as well as Israel's recent "tactical successes".