The head of Iran's top security body, Ali Larijani, will visit Iraq on Monday before heading to Lebanon, where the government has approved a plan to disarm Tehran's ally Hezbollah, Iranian state media said.

"Ali Larijani departs today (Monday) for Iraq and then Lebanon on a three-day visit, his first foreign trip since taking office last week," state television reported

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday toured several majority-Christian border towns in south Lebanon, where he called for peace rather than war.

The Lebanese Army said a blast at a weapons depot near the Israeli border killed six soldiers on Saturday, with a military source saying the troops were removing munitions from a Hezbollah facility.

Lebanon slammed what it called "flagrant and unacceptable interference" by Iran on Saturday after an adviser to the Islamic republic's supreme leader expressed opposition to the disarmament of its ally Hezbollah.

Five Lebanese soldiers were killed on Saturday in a blast while removing munitions from a Hezbollah military facility in south Lebanon, a military source told AFP.

The head of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc, MP Mohammad Raad, has warned that surrendering the group’s weapons would be equivalent to “surrendering one’s honor.”

MP Ali al-Meqdad of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc said “Lebanon should be protected by all its components and segments and by its resistance and army, which they want to put today in the face of the resistance.”

The Shiite Duo’s rejection of the government’s decisions on arms monopolization “will remain limited to political action and state institutions,” the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper quoted unnamed sources as saying.

Hezbollah was not in favor of participation in Thursday’s cabinet session that approved the “objectives” of the U.S. paper, but Speaker Nabih Berri insisted that Hezbollah and the Amal Movement take part in the meeting, pro-Hezbollah newspaper al-Akhbar reported on Friday.

MP Amin Sherri of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc said his party “will deal with what the government does according to the step by step principle,” adding that Hezbollah “objected to the U.S. paper because it reflects Israel’s goals.”