The Israeli military said Monday that four soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon, the first deaths announced in the area since the start of a ceasefire with Hezbollah 12 days ago.

The four reservists, all from the same battalion, "fell in combat" on Sunday, the military said without giving further details.

The Lebanese Army said one person was killed and four soldiers wounded Monday in an Israeli strike in the country's south, where a fragile ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel came into force last month.

"The Israeli enemy targeted a car near the Saf al-Hawa/Bint Jbeil military checkpoint, killing a citizen and lightly wounding four soldiers," the army said in a statement.

Syrian refugees in Beirut rejoiced Assad’s downfall on Sunday, with some saying they are considering returning to Syria.

“After all these years of suffering, God granted us relief,” Hilal Youssef, a Syrian from Hama, said on Sunday. “We will go back to Syria with pride and joy. We got rid of this army. We got rid of the injustice that we lived before and freed Syria. Now we can go there anytime we want.”

Iraqi embassy staff left Damascus on Sunday for neighboring Lebanon, a diplomatic source told AFP, after Syrian rebel forces seized the capital and declared the end of President Bashar al-Assad's rule.

The Lebanese Army said on Sunday it was reinforcing its presence on the border with neighboring Syria, after the government of longtime President Bashar al-Assad fell and rebels took the capital Damascus.

Syrians have crowded the Lebanese side of the Masnaa border crossing Sunday waiting to cross back into Syria after the fall of Bashar Assad.

Lebanon’s General Security closed the crossing overnight but reopened it in the morning, allowing Syrians to freely cross out of Lebanon while restricting their entry from Syria into the country.

Hezbollah is pulling its forces from the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus and the Homs area, a source close to the Lebanese group said Sunday, as their ally President Bashar al-Assad faces a rebel offensive.

Lebanon’s government has approved a plan to deploy more troops along the border with Israel, part of the ceasefire deal that ended the Israel-Hezbollah war.

In a rare Cabinet meeting outside of Beirut, held Saturday at a military base in the southern port city of Tyre, the government also approved a draft law to reconstruct buildings destroyed during the Israel-Hezbollah war that broke out in October 2023 and ended with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire last week.

A source close to Hezbollah said Saturday that the group sent 2,000 fighters to a part of Syria near the border with Lebanon, as ally Damascus reels from a rebel offensive that has seized major cities in recent days.

Lebanon’s General Security Directorate said the country is closing all land border crossing with Syria except for a main one that links Beirut with the Syrian capital Damascus.

The decision by the security agency in charge of border crossings came hours after an Israeli airstrike damaged the Arida border crossing with Syria in north Lebanon, days after it was reopened.