The Israeli military declared a military zone in parts of its northern border with Lebanon on Monday ahead of possible ground operations.

"The areas of Metula, Misgav Am, and Kfar Giladi in northern Israel have been declared a closed military zone. Entry to this area is prohibited," the military said in a statement.

United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon have been unable to conduct patrols because of the intensity of Israeli strikes and Hezbollah’s rockets targeting Israel, a U.N. spokesman said Monday.

"Our UNIFIL Blue Helmets remain in position in the mission’s area of responsibility, while the intensity of fighting is preventing their movements and ability to undertake their mandated tasks," Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told a media briefing.

Israel has informed the United States about limited ground operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure inside Lebanon, the State Department said Monday.

"I've seen reports about ground operations. We've had some conversations with them about that; they have at this time told us that those are limited operations focused on Hezbollah infrastructure near the border," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told journalists.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri confirmed Monday to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that Lebanon is still committed to what was agreed upon with American mediator Amos Hochstein regarding a path that leads to a ceasefire with Israel and the implementation of U.N. resolution 1701.

Berri said he had agreed on a ceasefire initiative with Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on Friday, and that the agreement is still "in effect."

Iran lost its most reliable ally in the Middle East when an Israeli airstrike killed Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. But Iran isn't leading the charge to retaliate.

"By the grace and power of God, Lebanon will make the transgressing, malicious enemy regret its actions," Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in the wake of Nasrallah's death Friday. But the 85-year-old paramount ruler in Iran gave no mention of his country taking action over the death of a man he once praised as "an exceptional face in the world of Islam" after the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006.

Germany sent an air force plane to strife-torn Lebanon on Monday to fly out some Beirut embassy staff and their dependents as well as German citizens with medical conditions, the government said.

"An Air Force A321 aircraft flew to Beirut today to support the departure of the colleagues and their families," said a joint statement by the foreign and defense ministries. "German nationals who are particularly at risk due to medical circumstances are also being taken on the Bundeswehr aircraft."

The world is safer after Israel's killing of Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the top U.S. diplomat said Monday, describing the Iran-backed Lebanese group's leader as a "brutal terrorist."

"The region, the world are safer without him," Antony Blinken said, even as he insisted that "diplomacy remains the best and only path to achieving greater stability in the Middle East" and vowed the United States would continue working "urgently" to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

The Israeli military said on Monday its forces killed at least two leaders of a left-wing Palestinian armed group, hours after the organization said its members were hit in a strike in central Beirut.

Israeli fighter jets "struck and eliminated the terrorist" Mohammad Abdel-Aal, head of the Lebanon branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the military said in a statement.

Israeli special forces have been carrying out small, targeted raids into southern Lebanon, gathering intelligence and probing ahead of a possible broader ground incursion that could come as soon as this week, people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal.

Lebanon's health ministry said an Israeli strike Monday killed six rescuers with the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee in the Bekaa Valley in the country's east.

An "enemy strike on the civil defense center of the Islamic Health Committee killed six emergency personnel and wounded four others" in the town of Sohmor, the ministry in a statement, condemning Israel's "targeting of rescue services".