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 Hezbollah's elite 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 on Monday accused Hamas of firing rockets at Israel from a "humanitarian zone" in the south of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli fighter jets targeted and destroyed three Hamas launching pads in the zone located in the west of the city of Khan Younis, the army said.
Hamas has yet to comment on the attack.
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."
Despite strong international opposition, Israel has been maintaining for weeks that it is planning a large-scale incursion into Rafah, the last major population centre in Gaza that has yet to see ground forces.
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.
More than 1 million Palestinians are sheltering in Rafah from fighting elsewhere in the sealed-off coastal area.
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.
Meanwhile in the occupied West Bank, where tensions have been running particularly high since the outbreak of the Gaza war, a Palestinian woman was killed in an attempted knife attack, according to the Israeli military.
The woman had refused to identify herself at an army barrier and then tried to attack soldiers with a knife, the army said. The soldiers then shot her.
The troops were not injured.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah confirmed the woman had been shot dead in the incident near the village of Tubas.
According to the Palestinian authorities, 439 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the Gaza war broke out more than six months ago - in Israeli military operations, clashes between the two sides, or in their own attacks.
Nineteen Israelis have been killed in attacks in the West Bank or Jerusalem.
