The day after elite U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Hezbollah will no longer have alleged operations in the South American state.

Speaking to CBS television, Rubio said: "It's very simple, OK? In the 21st century, under the Trump administration, we are not going to have a country like Venezuela in our own hemisphere, in the sphere of control and the crossroads for Hezbollah, for Iran and for every other malign influence in the world. That's just not gonna exist."

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen will visit Syria later this week on a first trip to the country since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, a spokeswoman said Monday.

Von der Leyen will head to Syria as part of a tour of the Middle East that will also see her visit Jordan and Lebanon, spokeswoman Paula Pinho said.

President Joseph Aoun’s latest reassurance that “specter of war has become distant” was based on “information received by the Lebanese official authorities from high-ranking international parties and Western embassies,” a prominent Lebanese official said.

“During their Dec. 29 meeting in Florida, U.S. President Donald Trump and the enemy’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed on striking Iran if it does not engage in a settlement according to the U.S. conditions,” the official told al-Akhbar newspaper.

Cabinet will meet on Thursday to discuss the army's progress in disarming Hezbollah south of the Litani River.

The ceasefire monitoring committee -- comprising Lebanon, Israel, the United States, France and U.N. peacekeepers -- is also set to meet this week.

Despite Israeli strikes on the south of the country, people in Lebanon were enjoying winter weather and snow over the weekend.

Lebanese and tourists took to the slopes to ski resorts northeast of Beirut, rode chairlifts and sleds over the snow-covered slopes in Faraya and Kfardebian, snowboarded and skied, while others along Beirut's coastline were swimming and enjoying the sun.

Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has acknowledged on X that the Lebanese government and army had made efforts to disarm Hezbollah but said "they are far from sufficient".

Saar met Sunday with U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.

A strike in south Lebanon has killed two people, with Israel saying it had struck a Hezbollah operative, the latest raids as Beirut seeks to disarm the Iran-backed group.

Despite a year-old ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel carries out regular strikes on Lebanon, usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah sites and operatives, and has maintained troops in five areas it deems "strategic".

Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem has said that his party wants Lebanon to be "sovereign, free, independent and capable."

Israel is considering launching an operation in Lebanon instead of settling for the current routine of airstrikes, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation has reported.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said gunfire from an Israeli position hit close to its peacekeepers twice on Friday, reporting no casualties but decrying a "concerning trend".

UNIFIL has repeatedly reported Israeli fire near or towards its personnel in recent months, and last week said an Israeli attack near one of its positions lightly wounded a peacekeeper.