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.

Iran has sent a "clear message" to Washington: if the negotiated solution does not include a cessation of the Israeli war on Lebanon and the commencement of negotiations, Tehran will treat the United States and Israel separately, a media report said.

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced Monday that Israel is "committed to making the Litani River the new security border at the end of this war."

Iran has linked Lebanon to its front against Israel and made its inclusion in negotiations for a ceasefire a precondition for any agreement.