President Joseph Aoun announced Tuesday that the negotiations with Israel are “making progress,” adding that “in any case” the talks “are better than the devastating results of war.”

“The scale of Israeli attacks on our country has decreased since the signing of the framework agreement, which has positively impacted the return of Lebanese citizens to spend the summer in their homeland,” Aoun added.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei on Tuesday strongly condemned "the brutal attacks launched by the Zionist regime in recent days on areas in southern Lebanon," according to the Iranian news agency IRNA.

Washington feels good about where talks between Lebanon and Israel are heading, a U.S. State Department official told Al Arabiya English.

The official’s remarks come despite the fact that the latest session of talks between the two sides was cut short because of Lebanese frustration with continued Israeli bombings and Israeli accusations that the Lebanese side was leaking contents of the meeting.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said that Iran should be “responsible for the damages and death caused to the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza,” in response to Iran’s insistence that U.S. payment of war reparations is a pre-condition to any resolution of the ongoing hostilities.

"I am likewise demanding compensation from Iran," Trump said, noting that his demand included not only damages arising from the current war with Iran, but also Iranian attacks on U.S. targets going back more than two decades as well as payments to the families of Iranian protesters killed by authorities over the past 50 years.

An Israeli drone struck Tuesday a vehicle in the southern city of Nabatiyeh, wounding two people, the health ministry said.

A double-tap strike targeted first responders who rushed to the scene, damaging an ambulance.

President Joseph Aoun was briefed Monday by the head of the Lebanese negotiating delegation, ex-ambassador Simon Karam, on the deliberations of the meetings that were held in Rome last week between the Lebanese, U.S. and Israeli delegations, the Presidency said.

The president provided Karam with his “directives for the next stage,” the Presidency added.

Hezbollah has noted that the Israeli foreign ministry’s publishing of a map that annexes occupied southern Lebanon “confirms beyond any doubt the true extent of the Israeli enemy's ambitions for Lebanon.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that Israel has “acted with force in Lebanon” in recent days, noting that it has eliminated “terrorists,” including “on the Ali Taher ridge” in the Nabatieh region.

“I cannot elaborate on this. We are in the midst of a very important operation,” Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting.

Washington has informed Israel through intensive contacts of the need to de-escalate in Lebanon, sources told Al-Arabiya on Friday.

U.S. State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement that the seventh round of negotiations between Lebanon and Israel was “fruitful” amid ongoing Israeli attacks on Lebanon.