There is no problem between the United States and Lebanon's Shiites, whom "we view as having been and still being a fundamental political component in the country," a prominent diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut has been quoted as saying.

Defence Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday said Israel's military would occupy a swathe of southern Lebanon even after the end of the current war against the Hezbollah armed group.

"At the end of the operation, the IDF will establish itself in a security zone inside Lebanon, on a defensive line against anti-tank missiles, and will maintain security control over the entire area up to the Litani," Katz said in a video statement published by his ministry, referring to a river around 30 kilometers from the border.

At least nine people were killed Tuesday in Israeli strikes on south and east Lebanon.

The Israeli army targeted al-Qantara, al-Qasmiyeh, Yater, Deirkifa, Zawtar, Shehabiyyeh-Kfardounin, Majdalzoun, Mansouri, al-Qlayleh, Henniyyeh, Ebba, Rshaf, Kafra, Dayr a-Zahrani, Srifa, Ebl al-Siqi, Khiam, and Jebshit in south Lebanon, while artillery shells hit Wadi Serbine, Touline, Qabrikha, Majdal Selem and the outskirts of Beit Leef.

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese displaced by the escalating war between Israel and Hezbollah have poured into Beirut, seeking refuge wherever space is available.

Families from southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of the capital known as Dahieh, where Hezbollah has its main operations and support base, are now living in makeshift tents along the Beirut corniche, in classrooms turned into shelters, a sports stadium and even inside hospitals.

Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the United Nations’ peacekeeping chief, told reporters Monday that it looks like Israel is expanding a buffer zone in southern Lebanon.

He said that given Israeli military statements and actions, "it certainly looks like we might end up with, I would call it, an expanded buffer zone in southern Lebanon."

Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaer, the U.N. special coordinator for Lebanon, issued a scathing statement Monday, saying that the humanitarian impact in southern Lebanon as Israel trades fire with Hezbollah has reached devastating levels.

The envoy detailed the three U.N. peacekeepers and nine Lebanese paramedics killed in just the last few days as a snapshot of the death toll that now stands at more than 1,240.

An armed man who crashed his pickup truck into a major Detroit-area synagogue earlier in March was inspired by Hezbollah and had sought to inflict as much damage as he could on Jewish people, the FBI said Monday.

Ayman Ghazali made a video just minutes before the attack at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, saying he wanted to "kill as many of them as I possibly can" in the large Jewish congregation, said Jennifer Runyan, head of the FBI in Detroit, who announced the new information.

Lebanon has asked Ukraine's Beirut embassy to hand over a man taking refuge there who is suspected of working with Israel's Mossad spy agency, a senior security official and a Hezbollah source told AFP.

Lebanon and Israel have officially been at war for decades, and Lebanese security services have arrested dozens of people on suspicion of working for Israel, many of whom were recruited online following the country's economic collapse beginning in 2019.

The United Nations’ most powerful body will convene an emergency session Tuesday after officials announced that three peacekeepers in southern Lebanon had been killed in the last 24 hours. The meeting was scheduled after a request from France.

It was unclear who was behind the projectile and explosion that killed the three peacekeepers, as the U.N. says the incidents remain under investigation.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday four soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon as Hezbollah claimed attacks on troops in Ainata, Naqoura, Bayada, Beit Leef, Aitaroun and on the Qantara-Taybe road.

A military statement named three soldiers from the same battalion who "fell during combat" and a separate statement said another soldier, who had not yet been publicly named, had died in the same incident.