Israel-Hezbollah live updates: Netanyahu orders 'full force' in Lebanon despite U.S. cease-fire push

Adele Khodr, UNICEF's regional director for the Middle East, decried the death of Palestinian children after four schools were struck in Gaza this last week.

A school in the Jabaliya refugee camp was hit just today and 11 people were reportedly killed, Khodr noted in a post on X.

"Horrifying footage shows children are among the casualties," Khodr wrote. "This school — used as a center in the recent polio vaccination campaign — is now totally destroyed."

Palestinian children in Gaza are at risk of becoming a "lost generation," according to a joint study between Cambridge University and the United Nations' agency for Palestinian refugees that analyzed the impact of war on their education.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote about the completed study in a post on X, saying that the "continuous shock & suffering are shaping children’s world views, threatening their faith in the future + in human rights."

The number of children under 10 who cannot read basic text has increased by at least 20%. The study also considered the impact of trauma on educators, which has "taken a tremendous toll on their ability to engage meaningfully in education."

"The most optimistic prediction — assuming an immediate cease-fire and rapid international effort to rebuild the education system — is that students will lose two years of learning," the study found. "If the fighting continues until 2026, the losses could stretch to five years."

Gen. Tomer Bar, chief of Israel's air force, said it is working to stop "any possibility" of arms transfers between Iran and Hezbollah, which could include a potential ground invasion of Lebanon.

"We are actually preparing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Northern Command for the entrance of a ground maneuver," he said. Israeli troops on the border with Lebanon conducted military exercises simulating a ground offensive earlier today.

Bar added that the decision to go in "comes from above us" but that the air force is preparing for a combined air and ground maneuver "if required."

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri declined to accept an award from New York City’s Noguchi Museum after it fired three employees for wearing keffiyeh head scarves, an emblem of Palestinian solidarity, following an updated dress code.

“Jhumpa Lahiri has chosen to withdraw her acceptance of the 2024 Isamu Noguchi Award in response to our updated dress code policy,” the museum said in a statement on Wednesday.

“We respect her perspective and understand that this policy may or may not align with everyone’s views.” Lahiri received the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for her book “Interpreter of Maladies.”

The New York Times first reported the news.

Across the world, protesters demanding an end to Israel’s war in Gaza have worn the black-and-white keffiyeh headscarf, a symbol of Palestinian self-determination. Anti-apartheid South African leader Nelson Mandela was also seen wearing the scarf on many occasions.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's national security minister, has threatened to pull his party's support for the current coalition government in the Knesset if Israel agrees to a 21-day cease-fire with Hezbollah, threatening Benjamin Netanyahu's hold on power.

In a statement today, Ben-Gvir said that when an enemy is "on his knees, you do not allow him to recover." He said his far-right party, Otzma Yehudit, will pull its coalition support, which means "no votes, no government and Cabinet meetings, and no coalition activity."

U.S. officials have previously accused Ben-Gvir of undermining cease-fire negotiations in Gaza.

In a brief statement on the airport tarmac as he arrived in New York for the U.N. General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that his government "will not stop" its fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

"My policy, our policy, is clear: We continue to hit Hezbollah with all our might," Netanyahu said. "We will not stop until we achieve all our goals, first of all the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes. This is the policy — and no one will mistake it."

His statement struck a defiant tone against efforts by U.S. and French officials to push Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a 21-day cease-fire in order to engage in long-term diplomatic discussions.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin urged all parties to seize on the opportunity for a 21-day cease-fire so that displaced residents on both sides of the Lebanon-Israel border can return home.

Speaking at a press conference in London, Austin insisted that the proposed deal will allow people to return home, determine a long-term solution between Hezbollah and Israel, and avoid another "full-scale" war in the region.

"So let me be clear, Israel and Lebanon can choose a different path," Austin said. "Despite the sharp escalation in recent days, a diplomatic solution is still viable."

Austin went so far as to say that diplomacy is the only way to find resolution, "not a military solution." A war between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel would be devastating for everyone involved, the defense secretary added.

"I know that our diplomats continue to engage each other on this issue," Austin said. "I am confident that they’ll continue to find a way to to do just that."

Lebanon's Ministry of Health said today that an Israeli strike on the town of Younin, in the country's northeast, killed 20 people, 19 of whom were identified as Syrian nationals.

There are an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees living in Lebanon, displaced there due to the ongoing Syrian civil war, which began in 2011. Nine in 10 refugee households in Lebanon live in extreme poverty, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

BEIRUT — There are around 100,000 people on the move and about 70,000 people living in shelters after they fled Israel's bombardment in southern Lebanon, the country representative for UNICEF told NBC News today.

“People have lost everything,” Édouard Beigbeder said at the National Nahda School in the country’s capital, Beirut. “They have lost their houses or their friends were injured or killed, or siblings. They had to flee in a few hours and they don’t foresee the future.”

“I think it’s a race against the clock and we need to help them and not only that but we need to ensure that these kids who are quite traumatized by what they have seen have proper care,” he added.

But he said the first requirement for those displaced “is water and non-food items as we are distributing today.”