Syria's interior ministry said Sunday that security forces thwarted an alleged cross-border attack from the country's territory planned by remnants of ousted leader Bashar al-Assad and cells linked to Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Speaking at the end of his Mass in Kilamba, Angola, Pope Leo said the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was a “sign of relief for the Lebanese people.”

The Israeli army says it carried out a series of strikes that killed more than 150 Hezbollah fighters just before the ceasefire.

Lebanon's military said Sunday it had reopened a road and bridge damaged by Israeli strikes in the country's south, as a 10-day truce holds between Hezbollah and Israel.

Israel's military said on Sunday that a soldier died during combat in southern Lebanon, where a temporary ceasefire had come into effect this week.

"Lidor Porat, aged 31, from Ashdod, a soldier in the 7106th Battalion, 769th Regional Brigade, fell during combat in southern Lebanon," the Israeli military said in a statement, without providing further details.

Israeli forces on Saturday carried out demolitions in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, the scene of intense fighting with Hezbollah prior to the recently agreed 10-day truce, Lebanese state media reported.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said overnight that the ongoing 10-day truce with Israel cannot be one-sided, vowing that his fighters would respond to Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

After the ceasefire in Lebanon took hold, Samah Hajoul headed back to her apartment in Beirut's southern suburbs -- but only long enough to grab fresh clothes, feeling safer in her tent as she wonders whether the truce will last.

Lebanon's president and prime minister have discussed preparations for the first direct negotiations with Israel in decades.

In a statement, the office of President Joseph Aoun said he and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam conducted "an assessment of the post-ceasefire phase and the ongoing efforts to consolidate it," and discussed "Lebanese readiness for the anticipated negotiations" with Israel.

Senior Hezbollah official Mahmoud Qamati said that his group was not concerned by Lebanon's planned direct talks with Israel, labelling them a failure.

In a press conference in Beirut's southern suburbs, Qmati said his group was "not concerned with the negotiations being conducted by the state," saying they were "a failure, weak, defeated... and submissive negotiations."