Speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday hailed the Lebanese Army and said that it should not be “put to tests” in connection with the so-called pilot zones scheme in south Lebanon.

Army Commander General Rodolphe Haykal on Thursday stressed that the army remains committed to fulfilling all its missions despite “the significant challenges posed by limited resources, the magnitude of the tasks, and the delicate circumstances.”

Lamenting that Israel is continuing its attacks and violations to “obstruct the army's efforts,” Haykal noted that the military “continues its deployment in the south in accordance with existing agreements and national principles, and its efforts to ensure the safe and secure return of our people to their villages and towns persist.”

President Joseph Aoun on Wednesday stressed that wars lead to no positive outcome and only bring “destruction to countries and poverty to their people.”

The Israeli army is considering a military response to the damage inflicted on an engineering vehicle by a “Hezbollah drone” in the Ali al-Taher heights in southern Lebanon, Israel’s Channel 14 said on Wednesday.

“Beirut's southern suburbs will not be a target in the response,” the channel added.

Israeli troops continue to detonate, demolish and burn southern villages they still occupy. On Wednesday, forces were bulldozing roads and buildings in Kfarshouba, burning homes in al-Qantara and detonating others in Tallousa, while artillery shelled Ali al-Taher, a strategic hill on the Israeli-declared Yellow Line.

The National News Agency said military vehicles made an incursion into the outskirts of Aita al-Jabal and reported overnight shelling and violent detonations in Nabatieh al-Fawqa, Zawtar al-Sharqiyeh, Kfartebnit, al-Mansouri and Majdalzoun, causing earth tremors felt in nearby villages.

President Joseph Aoun met Wednesday with Speaker Nabih Berri at the Baabda Palace, where they discussed “the general situation both locally and regionally, as well as the situation in southern Lebanon in light of the ongoing Israeli attacks on villages and towns, particularly the bombing and bulldozing of homes, and the need to halt these hostile practices,” the Presidency said.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has cautioned against reducing Lebanon's crisis solely to calls for a ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal, urging politicians to couple any demand for an Israeli withdrawal with Hezbollah's disarmament.

While acknowledging both as non-negotiable priorities, he argued that the core problem remains the existence of a statelet alongside the state that unilaterally dictates war and peace.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s advisor on Arab affairs, Massad Boulos, has said that “Iran wants Hezbollah to remain active in Lebanon.”

The joint coordination mechanism between the United States, Lebanon and Israel has been informed that the Lebanese Army, during its operations in one of the pilot phase areas, had discovered a Hezbollah weapons cache, Israeli media reports said.

The Israeli army struck Tuesday a residential building in the southern town of Nabatieh al-Fawqa along the Israeli-declared Yellow Line.

Forces also detonated overnight into Tuesday houses in Adshit, Markaba, Deir Seryan, Qseir, Majdalzoun, al-Mansouri and Bint Jbeil.