Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has reportedly said that Israel is acting “as if we have lost the war, but we have not been defeated.”

Hezbollah official Salim Ayyash, who was convicted by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon over the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri, has been killed in a recent Israeli strike in Syria’s Qusayr area, Arab and Israeli media reports said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Monday said there had been "certain progress" on a ceasefire in Lebanon after the Israeli army launched an operation in the country targeting Hezbollah.

"There is certain progress," Saar said in response to a question about a possible ceasefire. "We are working with the Americans on the issue," he told reporters in Jerusalem.

At least 41 people were killed in Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Sunday, including 23 in a raid north of the capital Beirut, the health ministry said.

Israel has intensified its air campaign in recent days, especially in the country's south and the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, in a first public disclosure, that he had okayed a September attack on Hezbollah in which hundreds of communication devices exploded across Lebanon.

"Netanyahu confirmed Sunday that he greenlighted the pager operation in Lebanon," his spokesman Omer Dostri told AFP of the attacks that killed nearly 40 people and wounded nearly 3,000, and preceded Israel’s ongoing military operation in Lebanon.

Curled up in his father's lap, clinging to his chest, Hussein Mikdad cried his heart out. The 4-year-old kicked his doctor with his intact foot and pushed him away with the arm that was not in a cast. "My Dad! My Dad!" Hussein said. "Make him leave me alone!" With eyes tearing up in relief and pain, the father reassured his son and pulled him closer.

Hussein and his father, Hassan, are the only survivors of their family after an Israeli airstrike last month on their Beirut neighborhood. The strike killed 18 people, including his mother, three siblings and six relatives.

Hezbollah said on Monday that the Israeli military has been unable to occupy even a single village in Lebanon since launching cross-border ground operations in September.

Taiwan investigators said Monday there was no evidence that Taiwanese individuals or firms were involved in a deadly September attack targeting Hezbollah communications devices which exploded in Lebanon.

"Our investigation has verified that no nationals or domestic companies were involved in Lebanon's high-profile pager detonation incidents," Taiwan prosecutors said in a statement.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has informed the Biden administration that he expects to see progress in the efforts to obtain a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, Israeli news portal Ynet has reported.

Lebanese official media reported an Israeli strike on a house in the main eastern city of Baalbek on Sunday, which was not preceded by an Israeli army evacuation warning.