Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday that the “next stage in the war against Hezbollah will begin soon,” Reuters reported.

Israel has told the United States about a number of operations, the State Department said on Monday, adding that Israel has informed Washington they are for now limited moves focused on Hezbollah infrastructure near the border with Lebanon.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was scheduled to convene a meeting of the security cabinet on Monday evening, according to The New York Times (NYT).

The paper also said U.S. officials believed they had talked Netanyahu’s government out of launching a full-scale invasion of its neighbor during intensive negotiations over the weekend.

Reuters cited a Lebanese security source on Monday as saying Lebanese forces had withdrawn 5 kilometers from the country’s southern border with Israel.

Escalating conflict

The latest developments follow an intensification in an ongoing conflict between Israel and militant Islamist group Hezbollah in recent weeks.

The NYT has reported that Israeli commando units have already made localized cross-border raids into Lebanon in recent days, which the paper said were in preparation for a wider ground offensive targeting the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The decades-long conflict between Israel and Lebanon has escalated since Gaza-based Islamic militant group Hamas attacked Israel last October. Since then, Israel has intensified attacks on what it says are legitimate terrorist targets in Lebanon.

The death of Hezbollah’s long-time leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was confirmed by the group on Saturday, a day after Israeli airstrikes destroyed six apartment buildings in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

The spate of attacks by Israel follows almost a year of violence in the Gaza strip, which Israel has bombarded since last October’s Hamas attack.

International calls for a ceasefire have gone unheeded and many fear the war may spread.