ISRAEL carried out a series of air attacks on southern and north eastern Lebanon today as a deadline looms to disarm the Hezbollah group along the tense frontier.

The attacks came a day before a meeting of the committee monitoring the enforcement of a United States-brokered ceasefire that halted fighting between Israel and Hezbollah more than a year ago.

It will be the second meeting of the mechanism after Israel and Lebanon appointed civilian members to a previously military-only committee. The group also includes the US, France and the United Nations peacekeeping force deployed along the border.

In Paris, Lebanon’s army commander General Rodolph Haikal is scheduled to meet on Thursday with US, French and Saudi officials to discuss ways of assisting the army in its mission to boost its presence in the border area.

The Lebanese government has said that the army should have cleared all the border area south of the Litani river from Hezbollah’s armed presence by the end of the year.

The Israeli military claim the strikes hit Hezbollah infrastructure and launching sites in a military compound used by the group to conduct training and courses for its fighters.

The Israelis said they also hit several Hezbollah weapon stores from which Hezbollah members had recently operated.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said the air attacks stretched from areas in Mount Rihan in the south to the north eastern Hermel region that borders Syria.

Shortly afterward, a drone strike on a car near the southern town of Taybeh inflicted casualties, NNA said.

“This is an Israeli message to the Paris meeting aiming to support the Lebanese army,” parliament speaker Nabih Berri said about the strikes.

“The fire belt of Israeli air strikes is to honour the mechanism’s meeting tomorrow,” Mr Berri added during a parliament meeting in Beirut.

Meanwhile, Israel also continued to break the so-called ceasefire in Gaza.

Israeli troops fired a mortar shell over the ceasefire line into a Palestinian residential area in Gaza.

Health officials said at least 10 people were wounded, while the Israelis claimed to be investigating the incident.

The Israelis said the mortar was fired during an operation in the area of the Yellow Line, which was drawn in the ceasefire agreement and divides the Israeli-held majority of Gaza from the rest of the territory.

The Israeli military did not say what troops were doing or whether they had crossed the line. It said the mortar had veered from its intended target, which it did not specify.