Dozens of heritage sites in Lebanon were granted "provisional enhanced protection" by UNESCO Monday, the U.N. cultural body said, offering a higher level of legal shielding as Israel heavily bombed Lebanon.

The 34 cultural sites affected "now benefit from the highest level of immunity against attack and use for military purposes," UNESCO said in a statement, adding that "non-compliance with these clauses would constitute 'serious violations' of the 1954 Hague Convention and... potential grounds for prosecution".

U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein will leave Washington to Beirut shortly, a U.S. official told U.S. news portal Axios on Monday evening.

U.S. officials had earlier told Axios that Hochstein had informed Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri that he was delaying his departure to Beirut until getting “more clarifications” about the Lebanese position regarding the cease-fire agreement.

Hezbollah said Monday that four members of its media office died in an Israeli strike on a central Beirut district a day earlier that also killed its spokesman Mohammed Afif.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has said that “U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein will visit Lebanon soon” and that “the ambiguous files will be resolved face to face.”

U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein will visit Beirut on Tuesday before moving to Tel Aviv on Wednesday to discuss Lebanon’s remarks over the U.S. ceasefire proposal, diplomatic sources said.

“If things get everyone’s approval, he will head to Paris on Thursday, where he will hold a press conference under the auspices of French President Emmanuel Macron to announce the ceasefire in Lebanon,” the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper quoted the sources as saying.

U.S. optimism on reaching a Lebanese-Israel ceasefire deal has reached its highest level in a year, a Lebanese government source told Al-Jazeera on Monday.

The Israeli army has started decreasing military reinforcements in the Upper Galilee to pave the way for returning the displaced residents to north Israel, Saudi Arabia’s Asharq al-Awsat newspaper has reported.

The European Union “continues to mobilize all the tools at its disposal to support the people affected by the ongoing conflict in Lebanon,” the EU Delegation to Lebanon said.

The Lebanese response to the U.S. ceasefire proposal has entered the final formulation phase and is supposed to be finalized today, Monday before being sent to U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein through the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, highly informed sources said.

The Israeli military said Hezbollah fired around 100 projectiles from Lebanon into northern Israel on Monday, with Israel's air defense system intercepting some of them.

Israeli firefighters said a rocket strike on a building in the northern Israeli town of Shfaram killed a woman, while first responders reported 10 mildly injured people.