Five Israeli strikes hit south Beirut and its outskirts on Saturday evening with four of them "very violent", official Lebanese media said after the Israeli army called for residents to evacuate the Hezbollah bastion.
"Israeli enemy warplanes carried out four very violent strikes on [Beirut's] southern suburbs, and one strike on the Chweifat [area]" Lebanon's National News Agency said.
AFP correspondents in Beirut heard several explosions and saw smoke rising south of Beirut.
The Israeli military says it will retaliate in its own time against Iran for a ballistic missile attack launched by Tehran on Tuesday, adding that two air bases struck in the attack remained fully operational and no aircraft were damaged.
"The way in which we respond to this disgraceful attack will be in the manner, at the location and the timing which we decide, according to the political leadership's instructions," Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.
Twenty-five people were killed and 127 wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Friday, the Lebanese health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
An Israeli strike hit Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli for the first time early on Saturday, after more bombardment hit Beirut's suburbs and Israeli troops sought to make new ground incursions into southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military said on Saturday it had killed two militants from the armed wing of Hamas operating in Lebanon.
Macron urges halt to shipment of arms to Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit out at France's President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday for saying shipments of arms to Israel used in the conflict in Gaza should be stopped as part of a broader effort to find a political solution.
"Shame on them," Mr Netanyahu said of Mr Macron and other Western leaders who have called for what he described as an arms embargo on Israel.
"Israel will win with or without their support," he said in a pre-recorded video released by his office, adding that calling for an arms embargo was a disgrace.
Mr Macron earlier told France Inter radio that the priority was "to get back to a political solution [and] that arms used to fight in Gaza are halted".
"France doesn't ship any," he said.
"Our priority now is to avoid escalation.
"The Lebanese people must not in turn be sacrificed, Lebanon cannot become another Gaza."
France is not a major weapons provider for Israel, shipping military equipment worth 30 million euros ($48 million) last year, according to the defence ministry's annual arms exports report.
Mr Macron's comments come as his Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot is on a four-day trip to the Middle East, wrapping up on Monday in Israel as Paris looks to play a role in reviving diplomatic efforts.
Potential Hezbollah leader out of contact since Friday
The potential successor to slain Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has been out of contact since Friday, a Lebanese security source said, after an Israeli air strike reportedly targeted him.
In its campaign against the Iran-backed Lebanese group, Israel carried out a large strike on Beirut's southern suburbs late on Thursday.
Axios cited three Israeli officials as saying the strike targeted Hashem Safieddine in an underground bunker.
The Lebanese security source and two other Lebanese security sources said Israeli strikes since Friday on Dahiyeh, a residential area and Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut, have kept rescue workers from scouring the site of the attack.
The Israeli military said on Saturday it had killed two militants from the armed wing of Hamas operating in Lebanon.
The military named Muhammad Hussein Ali al-Mahmoud, who it said served as the group's executive authority in Lebanon, as being killed in an Israeli air strike.
Said Alaa Naif Ali, a member of Hamas' Military Wing in Lebanon, was also killed in an Israeli operation overnight on Saturday, it said.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, confirmed the deaths of two of its fighters following Israeli air strikes in Lebanon, but provided different names for them: Mohammed Hussein Al-Louise and Saeed Attallah Ali.
Hezbollah has made no comment so far on Safieddine.
The loss of Nasrallah's rumoured successor would be another blow to Hezbollah and its patron Iran.
Israeli strikes across the region in the past year, sharply accelerated in the past few weeks, have decimated Hezbollah's leadership.
ABC/wires
