A senior field commander with Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike in Lebanon overnight, sources on both sides reported on Monday.
Ali Ahmed Hussein and two other fighters with the pro-Iranian armed group were killed in the southern Lebanon town of Sultaniyah, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.
The Hezbollah movement confirmed the death of the commander, but gave no further details. A source in Sultaniyah confirmed to dpa that Hussein, nom de guerre Abbas Jaafar, was a commander of the Radwan Brigade.
Hezbollah announced that his funeral would take place in Beirut's southern suburbs - a Hezbollah stronghold - later Monday.
The IDF said Hussein's position was comparable to that of a brigade commander and that he was behind recent attacks on civilian sites in northern Israel.
Since the beginning of the Gaza war after the massacre by the Palestinian militant organization Hamas in Israel on October 7, there have been daily, sometimes deadly, confrontations between Israel and Hezbollah. The tit-for-tat cross-border attacks have fuelled fears of a second war front.
Sunday marked six months since Israel launched its devastating air and ground war on the Gaza Strip in response to the massacre by Hamas and other militant groups that left some 1,200 people dead and more than 200 others taken hostage.
Israel announced on Sunday a major drawdown of troops from Khan Younis, the second-biggest city in the Gaza Strip.
Israel media reported that with the departure of the 98th commando mission from Khan Younis there were no longer actively manoeuvring troops in southern Gaza, raising questions about Israel's next steps in the war.
The IDF said the troops needed time to "recuperate and prepare for future operations."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that there "is a date" for Israeli ground troops to enter the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians are currently sheltering from the war.
"This victory requires entering Rafah and eliminating the terrorist battalions there. This will happen; there is a date," Netanyahu said in a statement on Monday evening.
The US and other allies have repeatedly warned Israel against a Rafah incursion due to the risk of high civilian casualties, with US President Joe Biden saying this would be crossing "a red line."
However, far-right factions in Netanyahu's coalition government have been pressuring the premier to go ahead with the plan, after Israeli troops surprisingly withdrew from Khan Younis.
Much of Gaza lies in ruins as fears of famine grow and Israel faces blistering condemnation of its actions, including for attacks on health facilities and the recent airstrike that killed seven aid workers from the charity World Central Kitchen.
The Hamas-run Health Ministry puts the death toll in Gaza at over 33,000.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan announced "new measures" directed against Israel in the light of the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
"These measures will continue until Israel declares a ceasefire and allows humanitarian aid to reach Gaza without interruption," Fidan said on Monday, according to the Anadolu news agency, without specifying the nature of the measures further.
Over the weekend, the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), William Burns, and a delegation from Hamas arrived in Cairo to resume indirect talks on ceasefire deal that would facilitate an exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
Weeks of negotiations - brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt - have seen hopes of a breakthrough repeatedly dashed.
A senior Hamas official confirmed to dpa that the Hamas team have left Cairo for negotiations with the movement's leadership. The official said that the Israeli negotiating team was "not being flexible" and were "still not responding to any of the Hamas demands."
An Egyptian security source said "the negotiations were positive and achieved slight progress, although not what was hoped for."
He added that another round will take place within 48 hours after each party consulted with their leaders.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid told Israeli radio on Monday that a deal was on the table. "It will be a deal we don't like, but we have to do it because we have to bring [the hostages] home," he said.
During a week-long ceasefire at the end of November, Hamas released 105 hostages. In return, Israel released 240 Palestinian prisoners from its facilities.
Tens of thousands of Israelis flooded the streets in multiple protests over the weekend to demand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu do more to secure the hostages' release.
