UAE authorities have arrested at least five members of a "terrorist network" linked to Iran and Lebanese group Hezbollah, state media said Friday.

President Joseph Aoun said a proposed framework to halt fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah was "still on the table", as he hosted French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Thursday.

Lebanon was pulled into the regional war on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets toward neighboring Israel in response to the killing of its ally Iran's supreme leader in Israeli-U.S. attacks.

Israel carried out strikes on towns in southern Lebanon, causing multiple injuries, state media reported on Friday.

Forced by yet another war in Lebanon to flee his home for the second time in just two years, and mourning lost relatives and friends, Hassan Kiki said he feels much older than 16.

An Israeli warplane broke the sound barrier over Beirut on Friday morning, state media said, as AFP journalists heard loud booms reverberate across the city and in distant mountains.

Lebanon's state electricity company said on Thursday that an Israeli attack knocked out power to a region of southern Lebanon.

Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani said Thursday that Israel has killed 500 Hezbollah fighters in its current war against the group, among them 200 from the elite Radwan unit. He gave no further evidence.

The claim came as the death toll in Lebanon topped 1,000.

Russia on Thursday blamed Israel for what it called a "targeted" airstrike that wounded a TV crew from state-run RT in Lebanon amid ongoing Israeli strikes and ground operations in the country's south.

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said on Thursday that tying Lebanon to regional calculations would give Israel a "pretext to expand its aggression" against the country, where Israel has been fighting Hezbollah for more than two weeks.

Lebanon was brought into the regional war on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets toward Israel in response to the killing of its ally Iran's supreme leader in Israeli-U.S. attacks.

The U.S. administration believes it is in the interest of both Israel and the U.S. to begin negotiations with Lebanon, but disagreements persist regarding the details, with Israel insisting on conducting them "under fire," U.S. sources in Washington told Al-Jadeed TV.