Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has said that U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein's visit to Lebanon on Wednesday has created "positivities that can be capitalized on."

Seventeen people were wounded, four of them critically, when an Israeli airstrike targeted the intersection of the southern town of al-Abbasiyeh near Tyre on Wednesday, the Health Ministry said.

Another strike meanwhile targeted a house in the southern border town of Rab Tlatine.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Wednesday stressed to visiting U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein “the need to press Israel to halt its attacks and threats,” noting that “the gateway for the solution is a ceasefire in Gaza and the implementation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, especially Resolution 1701.”

Visiting U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein warned Wednesday that the clock was ticking for a Gaza ceasefire that would also end 10 months of cross-border exchanges between Lebanon's Hezbollah and Israel.

Hochstein told a Beirut news conference that he and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, discussed "the framework agreement that's on the table for a Gaza ceasefire, and he and I agreed there is no more time to waste and there's no more valid excuses from any party for any further delay."

Lebanese Muay Thai star Omar El Halabi is set to compete in the main event of martial arts event ONE Friday Fights 75 this Friday, August 16.

El Halabi faces Thai opponent Kompet Fairtex in a Catchweight (57.6 Kg) Muay Thai contest at Bangkok’s iconic Lumpinee Stadium in the 75th installment of ONE Championship’s weekly fight series.

A Hezbollah lawmaker on Tuesday said that his group’s objective from the Lebanon front against Israel is to “press the enemy to halt the aggression against Gaza.”

U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein will visit Lebanon this week in an attempt to contain escalating tensions between Hezbollah and Israel, media reports said.

Lebanon has been on a knife's edge since a strike on Beirut's southern suburbs last week killed Hezbollah's top military commander, just hours before the assassination, blamed on Israel, of Hamas' political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

An Israeli drone targeted Tuesday a car on the Beit Yahoun - Baraachit road as Hezbollah attacked surveillance equipment in Misgav Am and groups of soldiers in the occupied Kfarshouba Hills and in the Mattat barracks in northern Israel.

Israeli tanks meanwhile shelled a house in the southern border town of Abbasiyyeh while artillery bombed the outskirts of al-Naqoura, Tayrharfa and Zebqine. Israeli warplanes had raided overnight the southern border towns of Mays al-Jabal and Marwahin.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Monday said that “diplomatic contacts are active in several directions to halt the Israeli threats against Lebanon and reach a ceasefire in Gaza.”

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday that he had wanted to attack Lebanon as early as October 11, 2023.