An American intelligence assessment found that it would be difficult for Israel to succeed in a war against Hezbollah amid ongoing fighting in Gaza, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.

U.S. President Joe Biden has dispatched his top aides to the Middle East with "a critical objective: Prevent a full-blown war from erupting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah," the U.S. newspaper said.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday stressed that his group’s response to Israel’s airstrike that killed Hamas deputy head Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut’s southern suburbs (Dahieh) “will undoubtedly come.”

The Palestinian resistance has lost only 10% of its capabilities since the outbreak of fighting, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said.

In an interview with Egypt-based weekly political magazine Rose al-Yūsuf, Berri said that the Israeli army will not achieve its goal to eliminate Hamas.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati met Friday with head of the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia, His Holiness Catholicos Aram I, in Antelias.

Mikati and Aram I discussed issues and challenges facing Lebanon, particularly the situation in the South of Lebanon, the presidential election, and the socio-economic crisis facing the country, the Armenian Church Catholicosate of Cilicia said.

EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, will arrive Friday in Lebanon on a three-day visit.

Borrell will meet with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib and Lebanese Army Commander General Joseph Aoun.

Clashes continued on Friday between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, as tensions rose further after a strike on Tuesday killed Hamas's number two, Saleh al-Arouri, in a Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut.

Israeli warplanes struck the outskirts of the southern towns of Majdalzoun and Mhaibib and a region near a Lebanese army position in Aita al-Shaab, while shells hit the border towns of Houla, Tayr Harfa, al-Jebbayn, Rashaya al-Foukhar, Fardis, al-Bustan and Yarin.

U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein arrived in Israel Thursday where he held a meeting with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, ahead of a possible visit to Lebanon.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati received a phone call Wednesday evening from French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna.

Hezbollah targeted Thursday Israeli soldiers and posts in Shtula, Metula, al-Manara and al-Jerdah while Israel struck the outskirts of Houla and Maroun al-Ras and shelled al-Khiam and the Panorama curve -- between Kfarkila and Odeisseh -- with white phosphorus bombs.

Four Hezbollah fighters, including a local Hezbollah leader, were killed overnight in southern Lebanon in Israeli strikes on the border town of Naqoura.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday described Israel’s killing of Hamas deputy head Saleh al-Arouri in an airstrike in Hezbollah’s stronghold of Beirut’s southern suburbs as “a major and dangerous crime.”

“We cannot overlook it and the matter does not need a lot of talking. It will not remain without a response or punishment and the battlefield and days and nights will prove this,” Nasrallah said, in a televised address marking the third anniversary of the assassination of top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and top Iraqi militant commander Abou Mahdi al-Muhandis.