Haniyeh, who arrived in Beirut on Wednesday, met with Nasrallah and “reviewed the most important developments in occupied Palestine, the course of events in Al-Aqsa Mosque and the escalating resistance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip."

The two leaders also discussed "the political developments in the region, the readiness of the resistance axis and the cooperation of its parties in confronting all these events and developments."

The exiled Hamas leader has visited Lebanon several times in recent years, where he usually meets Nasrallah.

The impetus for the meeting was the escalation in violence that erupted last week after Israeli police raided the Al-Aqsa mosque on Wednesday, firing tear gas and stun grenades to disperse hundreds of Palestinians who were participating in Itikaf, the religious practice of seclusion inside mosques commonly observed during Ramadan, and arrested 350 of them.

In the aftermath, Palestinian factions vowed to launch revenge attacks, with Haniyeh confirming on Thursday from Lebanon that the factions would not stand "hands tied" in the face of the Israeli aggression on Al-Aqsa Mosque.

On Thursday, at least 34 rockets were fired from southern Lebanon towards Israel. Israel shot down most of them, attributing blame to Palestinian factions, likely Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

On Friday, the Israeli army carried out airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, and a smaller number on southern Lebanon.

On Saturday night, the Israeli army announced that it had launched ground and air strikes on sites in Syria in retaliation for the firing of missiles from Syria towards the occupied Golan Heights.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the Israeli bombardment targeted Syrian army sites in the southern governorates of As-Suwayda, Daraa and Quneitra.

At the same time, Israel is in the midst of deploying security reinforcements in the wake of two attacks on Friday that killed three people, an Italian tourist and two Israeli-British sisters, in Tel Aviv and the occupied West Bank.

On Saturday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that a Palestinian youth was killed by Israeli forces in the northern West Bank.