Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said Sunday that the United States was plotting a ground attack despite publicly engaging in diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the war.

"The enemy publicly sends messages of negotiation and dialogue while secretly planning a ground attack," Ghalibaf said in a statement carried by the official IRNA news agency.

Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier over Beirut and several areas on Saturday night, state media reported, as residents heard loud booms reverberate across the city and in the mountains.

Lebanese Health Minister Rakan Nassereddine said Saturday that 46 rescuers and five medical staff had been killed by Israel since the start of the war with Hezbollah on March 2.

President Joseph Aoun condemned the Israeli strike that killed a journalist for Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV and another for the pro-Hezbollah Al-Mayadeen channel in southern Lebanon on Saturday.

"Once again, the Israeli aggression violates the most basic rules of international law, international humanitarian law and the laws of war, by targeting journalists, who are ultimately civilians performing a professional duty," Aoun said in a statement released by the presidency.

Three Lebanese journalists were killed on Saturday by an Israeli strike that targeted their vehicle in southern Lebanon, a military source told AFP.

An Israeli strike targeted a car near Jezzine and a leaflet box hit a balcony in Jnah on Saturday after an overnight strike on Dahiyeh and air raids across south Lebanon.

Reports said the strike on the car killed four people.

U.S. President Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff said Friday he believes Iran will hold talks with Washington "this week" to end the month-long war in the Middle East.

A strike hit Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday afternoon without warning from the Israeli military, Lebanese state media said, as TV footage showed smoke rising from the area.

Nearly a month into the Middle East war, Lebanon is facing a deepening humanitarian crisis that now risks teetering over into a catastrophe, the U.N. refugee agency warned Friday.

Since March 2, more than a million people -- one in five residents -- have been forced to flee their homes, said the UNHCR.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards urged civilians across the region on Friday to stay away from areas near U.S. forces, nearly a month into the war with the United States and Israel.

"The cowardly American-Zionist forces... are attempting to use civilian locations and innocent people as human shields," said the Guards in a statement on their Sepah News website.