Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Tuesday that U.N.-sponsored talks are planned in the coming months to bring "greater stability" to Lebanon's clashes-hit southern border region.

The talks will aim at "reaching an agreement, via the U.N., about contested points along the border with the Israeli enemy," Mikati told a delegation from Lebanon's consular corps.

A Lebanese soldier was killed Tuesday and three others were injured by Israeli shelling that targeted their position on the al-Awayda Hill in the southern town of Odaisseh, as Hezbollah and Israel traded cross-border fire.

"An army military position in the Odaisseh area was bombarded by the Israeli enemy, leaving one soldier martyred and three others injured," the Lebanese army said in a statement.

A Qatari envoy is expected to arrive in Beirut this week, political sources told the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa newspaper, in remarks published Tuesday.

The five-nation group for Lebanon -- the United States, Saudi Arabia, France, Egypt and Qatar -- has been intensifying its efforts to help break the presidential impasse and keep Lebanon out of the Gaza war.

Israeli army Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee has hailed Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil’s rejection of a Hamas statement that announced the establishment in Lebanon of a division called al-Aqsa Flood Vanguards and called on Palestinian youths to join it.

With a journalist or media worker killed every day on average in the Israel-Hamas war, the head of the global organization representing the profession said that it has become a conflict beyond compare.

About 60 have been killed since the Oct. 7 start of the war, already close to the same number of journalists killed during the entire Vietnam War half a century ago. Other brutal wars in the Middle East have not come close to the intensity of the current one.

Israel is determined to kill Hamas’ leaders “in every location” in the world, including Qatar, Turkey, and Lebanon, even if it takes many years, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar said in recordings revealed Sunday.

“In every location, in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Lebanon, in Turkey, in Qatar, everyone,” he said in recordings aired by the Kan public broadcaster Sunday evening. “It will take a few years, but we will be there in order to do it.”

The Free Patriotic Movement has said that “there is no need for the Lebanese Forces to be tense or to justify why it is seeking the extension” of the term of Army chief General Joseph Aoun.

The Israeli army shelled Monday several border towns in south Lebanon as Hezbollah targeted groups of soldiers in northern Israel.

Hezbollah said it targeted several Israeli posts including Ruwaisat al-Alam, al-Baghdadi post, and groups of soldiers in Shtula, Misgav Am, Karm al-Touffah near the Branit Barracks and al-Raheb post. The group said all attacks were direct hits and inflicted casualties.

Maronite Patriach Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday lamented the end of the truce in Gaza, decrying that “the innocent people are bearing the consequences of the destructive war.”

“What is the meaning of the humanitarian truce if it will pave the way for a ferocious war after a break,” al-Rahi wondered in his Sunday Mass sermon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated numerous warnings he had made against Hezbollah before the recent ceasefire with Hamas, telling the Lebanese Iran-backed group that Lebanon will be destroyed if it opens up a major war against Israel.

“We are acting in the north all the time against all efforts by Hezbollah to operate against us. We are eliminating terror cells, pushing them away from the border, destroying munitions. We will continue with strong deterrence in the north, and total victory in the south,” Netanyahu said.