French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday called on the United States to pressure Israel to accept a plan for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, saying an Israeli invasion would be a huge mistake.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz had earlier rejected a French-U.S. proposal for a 21-day truce. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the military to keep fighting with full force, Reuters reported.

Macron, speaking in English, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation there was still time for Netanyahu to commit to the plan.

"And I do believe that the U.S. now has to increase the pressure on the prime minister of Israel to do so," he said. If Netanyahu said no, Macron said, France would raise the matter at the United Nations Security Council.

"We wait for all the partners to be very vocal and committed with us in order to send this clear message: Israel cannot invade Lebanon today. War is not possible in Lebanon today; it would be a huge mistake, a huge risk of escalation," he said.

Macron earlier told a news conference in Montreal that he did not think the comments by Israeli officials on the ceasefire idea were definitive.

He also said France was opposed to Lebanon becoming a new Gaza, calling on Israel to stop its strikes and Hezbollah to stop retaliating.

The United States plans to announce more than $8 billion worth of military assistance for Ukraine on Thursday during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's visit to Washington, two U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

President Joe Biden's administration has been engaged in urgent discussions with Congress to allow it to use up $5.6 billion in military aid for Ukraine before Sept. 30 - the end of the federal fiscal year - when the authority was set to expire, Reuters reported.

On Thursday, U.S. officials said, the White House intends to notify Congress it will move forward with the announcement of a $5.6 billion drawdown from U.S. weapons stocks. The contents of that package are still in flux, the officials said.

Reuters reported this month that the Biden administration was considering a backup plan under which it would announce plans for shipments for Ukraine, but with an extended delivery timeline for the weapons and equipment, allowing for a more gradual transfer of resources to Ukraine without missing the Sept. 30 deadline.

A second announcement slated for Thursday will be for $2.4 billion worth of aid under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative program, which allows the administration to buy weapons for Ukraine from companies rather than pull them from U.S. stocks.

That aid will include munitions, weapons to combat drones and material to support munitions production in Ukraine, one of the U.S. officials said.

In addition, the U.S. announced on Wednesday $375 million worth of Presidential Drawdown Authority for Ukraine. The package will include the first shipment of a precision-guided glide bomb with a range of up to 81 miles (130 km) called the Joint Standoff Weapon, two U.S. officials said. The inclusion of that weapon was not disclosed in the announcement, read the report.

The package, which Reuters first reported on last week, includes patrol boats, additional ammunition for high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), 155mm and 105mm artillery ammunition, spare parts and other weapons.

The Joint Standoff Weapon would be dropped from fighter jets, and is capable of striking targets with high accuracy. Ukraine has been largely prohibited from using U.S.-supplied weapons in strikes into Russia.

Presidential Drawdown Authority allows the president to draw from current weapons stocks to help allies in an emergency. In August, as Ukraine was pressing an incursion into Russia and losing territory in its east to Russian advances, Washington announced two packages, both for $125 million each.

Congress has approved nearly $175 billion of aid and military assistance for Ukraine and allied nations in the 2-1/2 years since Russia's full-scale invasion, and many lawmakers say they expect Washington will need to approve more money to help the government in Kyiv in the next several months.

U.S. companies that might benefit from increased weapons shipments to Ukraine include arms makers like RTX, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman, Reuters reported.

Lebanon's Hezbollah said on Wednesday it fired a rocket targeting Mossad spy agency headquarters near Tel Aviv, which it blamed for the assassination of its leaders and for blowing up communications devices used by its members, in a new escalation that moved the arch-foes closer to full-fledged war.

Warning sirens sounded in Israel's economic capital Tel Aviv as a single surface-to-surface missile was intercepted by air defence systems after it was detected crossing from Lebanon, the Israeli military said.

There were no reports of damage or casualties and the military said there was no change to civil defence instructions for central Israel, Reuters reported.

Warning sirens also sounded in other areas of central Israel, including the city of Netanya.

The Israeli military said a drone crossing into Israeli territory from Syria was intercepted by fighter jets south of the Sea of Galilee.

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon fired hundreds of missiles and rockets at Israel in recent days as months of conflict across the border with southern Lebanon has intensified sharply.

The Israeli military has been conducting its heaviest air strikes of the war this week, targeting Hezbollah leaders and hitting hundreds of targets deep inside Lebanon.

On Tuesday, a strike in Beirut killed senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Qubaisi, who headed the group's missile and rocket force.

He is one of several key figures who have been assassinated since fighting broke out between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah nearly a year ago in parallel with the Gaza war.

Lebanon ‘at the brink’

Israel's offensive since Monday morning has killed 569 people, including 50 children, and wounded 1,835 in Lebanon, Health Minister Firass Abiad told Al Jazeera Mubasher TV.

A new offensive against Hezbollah has stoked fears that conflict between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza is widening and could destabilize the Middle East.

The U.N. Security Council said it would meet on Wednesday to discuss the conflict.

"Lebanon is at the brink. The people of Lebanon – the people of Israel – and the people of the world - cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza," U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said.

Half a million people are estimated to have been displaced in Lebanon, said Lebanon's Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib. He said Lebanon's prime minister hoped to meet with U.S. officials over the next two days.

In Beirut, thousands of displaced people who fled from southern Lebanon were sheltering in schools and other buildings.

Israel's military said its airforce conducted "extensive strikes" on Tuesday on Hezbollah targets across southern Lebanon, including weapons storage facilities and dozens of launchers that were aimed at Israeli territory, Reuters reported.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the attacks had weakened Hezbollah and would continue. Hezbollah "has suffered a sequence of blows to its command and control, its fighters, and the means to fight. These are all severe blows," he told Israeli troops.