Lebanese were surveying the damage on Monday after overnight Israeli strikes hit nearly a dozen branches of a Hezbollah-run financial institution that Israel says is used to fund attacks but where many ordinary people keep their savings.

The strikes targeted Al-Qard Al-Hassan branches in the southern neighborhoods of Beirut, across southern Lebanon and in the Bekaa, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. One strike flattened a nine-story building with a branch inside it. Smoke was still rising from several locations on Monday and bulldozers were removing the debris.

On top of the grievous toll in human life and misery, Israel's war against Hamas and Hezbollah has been expensive, and the painfully high financial costs are raising concerns about the long-term effect of the fighting on the country's economy.

Military spending has ballooned, and growth has stalled, especially in dangerous border areas that were evacuated. Economists say the country could face declining investment and higher taxes as the war strains government budgets and forces tough choices between social programs and the military.

The Israeli military has apologized for a strike in southern Lebanon that killed three Lebanese soldiers.

The military said it struck a truck on Sunday that had entered an area where it had previously targeted a Hezbollah truck transporting a launcher and missiles.

The Lebanese Army said three soldiers were killed in an Israeli strike on Sunday on their vehicle in southern Lebanon. There was no immediate comment on that from the Israeli military, which said it struck more than 100 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in the past day and continued ground operations there.

Israeli airstrikes were targeting Beirut's southern suburbs on Sunday night, after the Israeli army warned that it would target Hezbollah's al-Qard al-Hassan financial institution in Haret Hreik, Shiyyah, Ghobeiri, Choueifat, Tahwitat al-Ghadir and Burj al-Barajneh.

The National News Agency reported 11 strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, many of them targeting al-Qard al-Hassan. Other strikes hit the association in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley and in the country's south, NNA added.

U.S. President Joe Biden has suggested that negotiating a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hezbollah could be easier than forging one between Israel and Hamas.

Biden said he discussed the way ahead to end the Middle East conflict following the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza when he met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin on Friday.

Top political leader of Hamas, Khalil al-Hayya, on Friday confirmed the death of the group’s leader, Yahya Sinwar.

Al-Hayya, in a televised statement, reiterated the Palestinian militant group’s stance that it will not release Israeli hostages captured in the group’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel until there is a cease-fire in the yearlong war in Gaza.

Forces in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon are maintaining their positions despite “demands” to move from the Israeli army, a spokesperson said Friday.

Andrea Tenenti of UNIFIL, the interim force in Lebanon, says a “unanimous” decision was taken by its 50 troop-contributing countries and the U.N. Security Council to hold its positions and continue efforts to monitor the conflict and ensure aid gets to civilians.

This year has seen President Vladimir Putin repeatedly brandish the nuclear sword, reminding everyone that Russia has the world's largest atomic arsenal to try to deter the West from ramping up support for Ukraine.

He ordered his military to hold drills involving battlefield nuclear weapons with ally Belarus.

South Korean intelligence has found that North Korea has dispatched 12,000 troops including special operation forces to support Russia's war against Ukraine, news reports said Friday, a development that could bring a third country into the war and intensify a standoff between North Korea and the West.

Yonhap news agency cited the National Intelligence Service as saying that the North have already left the country, formed into four brigades. Other South Korean media outlets carried similar reports.