Israel is expecting a response on the northern front to the killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Sayyed Reza Mousavi in Syria, Israeli media reported on Monday evening, citing defense establishment officials.

The northern front refers to Lebanon and Syria.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declared stances about the distance that Hezbollah should move to away from Israel’s border are different than what is being said behind the scenes, an Israeli radio network said.

Hezbollah has condemned an Israeli strike that left a senior general with Iran's Revolutionary Guards and three more fighters dead near the Syrian capital.

"We consider this assassination a blatant and shameless assault and a crossing of limits,” Hezbollah said in a statement.

Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant has held a situation assessment in the Israeli army’s Northern Command, where he was briefed on operational activities conducted along the border with Lebanon.

Hezbollah on Monday announced waging two attacks on Israeli posts in northern Israel as Israeli shelling and airstrikes targeted several Lebanese southern border towns.

In a statement, Hezbollah said it attacked Israeli troops near the Mattat barracks with the “appropriate weapons.”

Israel carried out several airstrikes on southern Lebanese border towns on Sunday, as Hezbollah announced a fresh attack on Israeli posts.

Hezbollah’s al-Manar televisions said an Israeli warplane fired three missiles at a house in Rab Tlatine as an Israeli drone bombed a school in al-Taybeh.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday condemned “the genocidal and brutal war that is ongoing in Gaza,” while rejecting “its spread to the southern villages” in Lebanon.

“Lebanon is not a land of war but rather a land of dialogue and peace,” al-Rahi said in his Sunday Mass sermon.

Christians in the border villages of south Lebanon prepared for a subdued Christmas under the shadow of the ongoing war in Gaza and its spillover in Lebanon.

While in Beirut restaurants were packed and hundreds flocked to Christmas markets in the days leading up to the holiday, in the border towns houses were empty and businesses shuttered. The residents have fled to stay with relatives or in rented apartments in Beirut or other areas farther from the conflict.

The head of Hezbollah’s executive council, Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, has stressed that his party is “not the resistance that awaits the Americans and Israelis to decide its fate.”

“We are the ones who decide the fate of the South, the border and the future of this country at the level of confronting the enemy, whom we will not allow to attack Gaza undeterred,” Safieddine said.

Israeli artillery shelling targeted several Lebanese border areas on Saturday, as an Israeli airstrike wounded a cameraman from Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.

State-run National News Agency said artillery shelling hit the Ain al-Zarqa area between the border towns of Tayr Harfa and Alma al-Shaab. Violent artillery shelling also targeted the outskirts of the border town of Deir Mimas and the Khardali Valley area.