Israeli officials on Thursday were warning residents in the north to stay inside or remain near bomb shelters after the Israeli Air Force (IAF) struck hundreds of Hezbollah military targets inside Lebanon. 

The IAF, using intelligence from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), struck some 100 launchers and additional ‘terrorist infrastructure sites’ comprising about 1,000 barrels. 

Israeli officials said these barrels ‘were ready to be used in the immediate future to fire toward Israeli territory.’ 

It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties. 

The strikes come after two days of attacks targeting thousands of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies that have been widely blamed on Israel.

Speaking for the first time since back-to-back attacks Thursday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah described the mass bombing of devices as a ‘severe blow’ and threatened retaliation. 

During his speech, Hezbollah struck at least four times in northern Israel, and two Israeli soldiers were killed in a strike earlier in the day. Israeli warplanes flew low over Beirut while Nasrallah spoke and broke the sound barrier, scattering birds and prompting people in houses and offices to quickly open windows to prevent them from shattering.

Earlier Thursday, Hezbollah said it had targeted three Israeli military positions near the border, two of them with drones. Israeli hospitals reported eight people lightly or moderately injured. 

The attacks have heightened fears that 11 months of near-daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel will escalate into an all-out war. Hezbollah says its strikes on Israel are a show of support for Hamas. Israel’s nearly year-old war with Hamas in Gaza began after its militants led the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Israel has responded to Hezbollah’s attacks with strikes in southern Lebanon and has struck senior figures from the group in the capital, Beirut. The exchanges have killed hundreds in Lebanon and dozens in Israel and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents on each side of the border.

Israeli leaders have stepped up warnings in recent weeks of a potential larger military operation against Hezbollah, saying they are determined to stop the group’s fire to allow tens of thousands of Israelis to return to homes near the border. 

In a briefing Thursday, the Israeli defense minister said Hezbollah would ‘pay an increasing price’ as Israel seeks to make conditions near its border with Lebanon safe enough for residents to return.

‘The sequence of our military actions will continue,’ he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A group of Democratic lawmakers is calling for the U.S. to restore funding to a controversial United Nations agency that supports much-needed humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees but faced accusations that some of its employees participated in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.

Speaking at a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday afternoon, Democratic Reps. André Carson of Indiana, Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, among others, said passing H.R. 9649, or the UNRWA Funding Emergency Restoration Act, was crucial for helping Gazans.

Carson, who sponsored the bill, portrayed a dire situation in Gaza, calling current conditions ‘absolutely deplorable’ and ‘inhumane.’ 

‘One million. That’s the number of estimated Gazans who will not have enough food this month. 700,000. That’s the number of women and girls in Gaza who do not have access to menstrual products or even running water and toilet paper. 100,000. That is the number of Palestinians who have been seriously injured without access to functioning hospitals. 41,000. That’s the number of Palestinians killed by Israel since Oct. 7th,’ Carson said. 

Jayapal said the UNRWA has, for decades, ‘played an integral role in supporting the welfare of Palestinian refugees to ensure that they can live with dignity.’ 

‘Unfortunately, UNWRA has been under constant attack by those who want to put a stop to this lifesaving work. The stoppage of funding was an unnecessary and dangerous interruption to continue to provide the humanitarian assistant that is so necessary,’ she said. 

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, has been one of the central agencies distributing aid to Palestinians in Gaza over the course of Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas. It has around 30,000 employees. 

In January, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres tasked the U.N.’s investigative arm, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, to investigate allegations by Israel that UNRWA staff took part in the Oct. 7 massacre.

Nearly 20 UNRWA staff members were investigated, but the U.N. only found enough evidence to dismiss nine people.  

Still, Israel’s allegations initially led top donor countries — most notably, the U.S. — to suspend funding for UNRWA, causing a cash crunch of $450 million. Since then, all donor countries — except for the U.S. — have resumed funding. 

Schakowsky said it was ‘shameful’ that the U.S. decided to cut funding to UNRWA because only a ‘tiny number’ of the agency’s roughly 30,000 employees were alleged to have been involved in terrorist activities. 

‘Every other country, among those of our allies that had decided to stop funding UNRWA, have changed their mind. So now it is the United States alone,’ Schakowsky said. ‘And the fact that the United States has decided that it’s not going to be there means a danger to the people who are dying, in danger of dying every single day, including children and women and families and everyone for basic needs that they have. And that is shameful. We cannot allow that.‘

H.R. 9649 has 65 co-sponsors and support from more than 100 human rights organizations. But not everyone is supportive of restoring funding. 

Anne Bayefsky, Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and President of Human Rights Voices, said lawmakers’ support of H.R. 9649 whitewashes the UNRWA’s alleged ‘connections to terrorism’ and sends ‘the wrong message to Israel and America’s enemies at the wrong time.’ 

‘Let’s get the facts straight: UNRWA employees directly participated in October 7 atrocities; 10% of UNRWA employees are reported to have ties to multiple Palestinian terror organizations; a significant percentage of UNRWA’s senior education leadership are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad,’ Bayefsky said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

Bayefsky also noted that ‘UNRWA facilities — including schools — have been used as Hamas command and control centers and weapons depots [and] UNRWA’s Gaza headquarters powered a Hamas data center directly beneath it.’ 

Bayefsky slammed the UNRWA for not having taken, in her view, ‘serious steps towards accountability or prevention… while at the same time demanding more funding.’ 

‘This is not a small drop in a fictional ocean of humanitarianism,’ Bayefsky said. ‘UNRWA’s ties to Palestinian terrorism emanate from raising a generation of Palestinian Arabs on the hatred of Jews in its schools, upending the meaning of a ‘refugee’ to serve as a vehicle to eviscerate the Jewish state. And spreading slanderous lies guaranteed to undermine peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis to the detriment of all.’

Fox News Digital has reached out to the UNRWA for comment on H.R. 9649. The U.N., meanwhile, told Fox News Digital it does ‘not comment on legislations in countries. But we’ve been clear that UNRWA is the backbone of humanitarian support for Palestinian people and should be supported.’ 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., placed blame on former President Trump and Republicans for a potential partial government shutdown after the House failed to pass a stopgap spending measure on Wednesday. 

He filed cloture on Thursday in a procedural move in order to act as quickly as possible once the House passes a continuing resolution (CR), which is a short-term measure that would keep spending levels steady. 

‘By filing today, I am giving the Senate maximum flexibility for preventing a shutdown,’ Schumer explained in remarks on the Senate floor. Because he filed the vehicle sooner, a vote on a forthcoming CR could also take place sooner. 

‘Democrats and Americans don’t want a Trump shutdown,’ he said, dubbing a potential partial shutdown with the moniker of Trump’s name. ‘I dare say most Republicans – at least in this chamber – don’t want to see a Trump shutdown. And the American people certainly don’t want their elected representatives in Washington creating a shutdown for the sake of Donald Trump’s claims, when it’s clear he doesn’t even know how the legislative process works.’

The New York Democrat made the decision to file the legislative vehicle after the Republican-backed CR brought to the floor by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., failed, 202 to 220, with two members of his party voting ‘present.’ Nine Republicans also voted against the six-month stopgap spending bill, which included a measure to require proof of citizenship in order to vote. Three Democrats voted in favor of it. 

Lawmakers must pass a CR before the beginning of October to avoid a partial government shutdown. 

While Republicans in both the House and Senate have called for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act to be included in a spending bill, Schumer and Democrats have made it clear that they aren’t willing to get on board with a package that includes what they consider a ‘poison pill.’ 

Trump has sounded off on the spending fight, writing on Truth Social, ‘If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form.’

Schumer slammed the former president in his floor remarks, asking, ‘How does anyone expect Donald Trump to be a president when he has such little understanding of the legislative process? He’s daring the Congress to shut down.’

He further urged that ‘our Republican colleagues should not blindly follow Donald Trump.’

Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., on Wednesday responded to Trump’s post, telling reporters, ‘the one thing I will tell you is I don’t think it’s to anybody’s political benefit, you know, this far out from an election to have a government shutdown.’ 

In Schumer’s statement following the House’s failed vote and several times during his floor speech, he labeled a potential partial government shutdown as a ‘Trump shutdown,’ foreshadowing how Democrats plan to cast blame on the presidential candidate and Republicans if a shutdown does ultimately take place. 

Republicans have privately expressed concerns that any potential partial shutdown would reflect poorly on the GOP, more so than the Democrats. 

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., recently told reporters that he didn’t believe Republicans had much leverage in the CR discussion. He also claimed, ‘I don’t think Chuck Schumer cares one bit if the government gets shut down, so long as Republicans can be blamed for it.’

‘And if the government gets shut down, Republicans will be blamed for it,’ he predicted. 

A shadowy group has been recruiting unsuspecting candidates to act as potential spoilers in competitive House races in the latest attempt from far-left groups to tip Republican races.

For the past year, a group known as the Patriots Run Project has recruited Trump supporters to run as independent candidates in key swing districts where they could siphon votes from Republicans in races that will help determine which party controls the House next year, an Associated Press review found. In addition to two races in Iowa, the group recruited candidates in Nebraska, Montana, Virginia and Minnesota. All six recruits described themselves as retired, disabled or both.

The group’s operation provides few clues about its management, financing or motivation. But interviews, text messages, emails, business filings and other documents reviewed by the AP show that a significant sum has been spent — and some of it traces back to Democratic consulting firms.

‘At that time, I was thinking, ‘Well, it would be nice to be in Congress and get to work with President Trump,’’ Joe Wiederien, 54, reflected in an interview outside the Veterans Affairs hospital in Des Moines, where he was seeking treatment for a leaking incision on his head from previous brain surgery. ‘It looks like it’s a dirty trick now.’

A fervent supporter of former President Donald Trump, Wiederien was registered as a Republican until months earlier. A debilitating stroke had left him unable to drive. He had never run for office. For a time, he couldn’t vote because of a felony conviction.

But he arrived last month at the Iowa Capitol with well over the 1,726 petition signatures needed to qualify for the ballot as a conservative alternative to first-term Republican Rep. Zach Nunn. After filing the paperwork, he flashed a thumbs-up across the room at an operative he knew only as ‘Johnny.’

Thomas Bowman, 71 and disabled after a kidney transplant, said he believes he likely was recruited to run against Democratic Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota to split the conservative vote and help Craig win reelection in the suburban Minneapolis district. But the self-described constitutional conservative expressed gratitude for free help getting signatures.

‘They got me on the ballot,’ Bowman said. ‘If I had to do that all by myself, I couldn’t do it.’

Patriots Run Project’s actions have resulted in an FEC complaint from the conservative group Americans for Public Trust, which alleges that Patriots Run Project’s ‘major purpose’ was ‘influencing federal elections’ and the organization thus violated campaign finance law by failing to register as a political committee.

That would force the group to file reports that would likely reveal who is managing and financing the operation, as well as the motivation behind it.

The only concrete identifying detail listed on the group’s website is a mailbox inside a UPS store in Washington, D.C.

‘It’s clear this shady scheme connected to Democrats is a threat to democracy, yet every single Democrat candidate benefiting from the plot refuses to condemn it,’ National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Mike Marinella told Fox News Digital. ‘If they truly mean what they say, they can’t remain silent.’

Patriots Run Project operated a series of pro-Trump pages and ran ads that used apocalyptic rhetoric to attack establishment politicians in both parties while urging conservatives to run in November.

‘We need American Patriots like YOU to stand for freedom with President Trump and take back control from the globalist elites by running for office,’ one such ad states.

Once recruited, they communicated with a handful of operatives through text messages, emails and phone calls. In-person contact was limited. Patriots Run Project advised them about what forms to fill out and how to file required paperwork.

In at least three races, petition signatures to qualify for the ballot were circulated by a Nevada company that works closely with the Democratic consulting firm Sole Strategies, according to documents, including text messages and a draft contract, as well as the firm’s co-founder. In Iowa, a different Democratic firm conducted a poll testing attacks on Nunn, while presenting Wiederien as the true conservative.

A spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, House Democrats’ campaign arm, said the organization had no knowledge of or involvement in the effort. House Majority PAC, the Democrats’ big spending congressional super PAC, was also not involved, a spokesman said.

Democrats are no strangers to boosting extreme candidates. During the midterms, the Left funded ads for fringe Republican candidates, hoping they would be easier to defeat in a general election.

Associated Press and Fox News Digital’s Rich Edson contributed to this report.

House Republicans are moving to protect U.S. service members’ paychecks in the event of a partial government shutdown.

Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., is re-introducing her Pay Our Troops Act on Thursday, with support from at least 20 fellow House lawmakers – 16 Republicans and four Democrats.

It comes a day after more than a dozen House GOP lawmakers helped defeat Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to avert a partial government shutdown by extending the current fiscal year’s funding levels through March, known as a continuing resolution (CR). 

The Republican-controlled House and the Democratic-held Senate must come to some agreement on federal funding by Sept. 30 to avoid a shutdown weeks before Election Day.

‘It’s really important that we send that message to our military men and women, that they will receive a paycheck even with all the talk and uncertainty about funding the government,’ Kiggans, herself a veteran, emphasized to Fox News Digital.

Her previous iteration of the bill, which netted 118 co-sponsors, was introduced in late September 2023 – when Congress was similarly barreling toward a partial government shutdown with no agreement in sight until the 11th hour.

Johnson’s bill would also have included the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which adds a proof of citizenship requirement to the voter registration process – a bill Democratic leaders have deemed a nonstarter.

Three Democrats crossed the aisle to vote for his plan, while 14 Republicans who were mainly opposed to a CR on principle helped defeat it.

Johnson, R-La., however, has consistently vowed not to let the government shut down. 

But Kiggans’ bill is a sign that Republicans are growing anxious about the possibility of federal programs stalling and potentially thousands of workers being furloughed.

The legislation would extend pay for all service branches, including the Coast Guard, which Kiggans said had been left out of military funding protections in past shutdowns.

‘It also covers for some defense contractors and civilians that are also essential to military service,’ she said. ‘It just provides that reassurance we don’t need our military families to be worried about [whether they are] going to get a paycheck or not.’

Asked whether the Wednesday vote made her more nervous about the prospect of a shutdown, Kiggans said there was ‘a lot of uncertainty in this Congress.’

‘I am disappointed that we weren’t able to pass the funding bills in a timely manner. I think the American public would agree,’ Kiggans said.

She said she would have preferred spending some of the August recess working on the 12 appropriations bills that Congress must pass every year rather than scramble for more time with a CR.

‘Am I surprised it didn’t pass? Well it’s – I wish it was different, and we had passed it,’ Kiggans said of Johnson’s conservative CR, which the speaker’s allies hoped would be a strong opening salvo in the House’s negotiations with the Senate.

‘But we’ll have to continue to work, and hopefully we’ll get something passed soon,’ Kiggans said.

She said her office made Johnson aware that her bill was being prepared but cautioned the legislation would likely not be deployed for a House-wide vote unless a shutdown was imminent.

‘That’s my gut instinct, is that they probably will not bring it to the floor unless we are really faced with the reality of that,’ Kiggans said.

A new poll suggests that support is dropping among all Americans for Taylor Swift’s efforts to encourage her legions of fans to vote in the upcoming elections.

Fifty-three percent of voters questioned in a Monmouth University national survey released on Thursday said they approved of Swift’s voter encouragement efforts — which she did last week in a social media post following the first and potentially only debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump.

Swift, in her social media post, also endorsed Harris in the race to succeed President Biden in the White House.

Support for the pop star’s voter participation efforts is down 15 points from 68% in a Monmouth survey conducted in February, when Swift was in the spotlight for a debunked conspiracy theory surrounding the presidential election and the Super Bowl.

A baseless conspiracy theory at the time suggested that Swift was involved in a covert government plot to help President Biden win re-election. 

Swift endorsed Biden in the 2020 presidential election and for years has encouraged her fans to vote. 

The president suspended his re-election campaign following a disastrous debate performance in late June with Trump, and Harris replaced Biden two months ago atop the Democrats’ 2024 national ticket.

The new poll indicates that while support for Swift’s voter participation efforts remains high among Democrats — 87% in the new survey, unchanged from February — support has, not surprisingly, plunged among Republicans from an already low 41% earlier this year to just 20% now. Support among independents dropped from 73% to 52%, according to the survey.

‘Republicans were wary of Swift all along. What we don’t know is whether this will have any effect on the part of her fan base who already leans right,’ Monmouth University Polling Institute director Patrick Murray highlighted in the poll’s release.

More than 400,000 people clicked on the vote.gov website in the 24 hours after Swift’s endorsement of Harris in a post that also included a link to the voter registration website. What’s unclear is how many of those people will actually end up voting and whom they’ll support in the presidential election.

Trump initially downplayed Swift’s endorsement of Harris in a ‘FOX and Friends’ interview the morning after the debate. 

But on Sunday, Trump turned up the temperature, writing ‘I hate Taylor Swift’ in a social media post.

The Monmouth University poll was conducted from Sept. 11-15, with 803 registered voters nationwide questioned. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

Iran envoy Robert Malley may have taken part in a ‘classified conference call’ with the White House after his security clearance was suspended, according to the State Department inspector general’s new report. 

The State Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) did not interview Malley and could not confirm that he had been on the call, but his deputy notified a White House official that ‘Rob will call in’ and that Malley had ‘accessed the controlled office where the call would have occurred.’ 

At the time of the call, Malley’s clearance had been paused over misconduct allegations, but the envoy himself had not yet been notified. Malley – a controversial Washington figure who Republicans say is friendly to Iran – had been accused of storing classified information on his personal email account and phone. 

​​That material was later accessed by a ‘hostile cyber actor,’ according to Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, the Foreign Relations Committee ranking member, and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the House Foreign Affairs Committee chair. They revealed this information in May. 

The FBI is investigating whether Malley committed crimes in moving classified information over to his personal email.

OIG found that State had ‘deviated’ from the normal procedure of clearance suspension by not letting Malley know until senior department officials had been made aware. 

Department officials also restored Malley’s access to sensitive but unclassified information after they had paused his clearance, worried that he might use a personal email account to conduct government business if they did not. 

Sen. Bill Hagerty, Tenn., top Republican on the subcommittee on State Department Management, accused the Biden administration of colluding with Russia after the report. 

‘We see growing evidence of Iran collusion by members of the Biden-Harris administration amid the FBI’s reported ongoing investigation into Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley’s mishandling of classified information and news reports that Malley and other Biden-Harris administration officials were part of the Iranian regime’s malign influence network known as the ‘Iran Experts Initiative’,’ said Hagerty. 

Two people who had been commissioned by the Iranian Foreign Ministry to bolster the regime’s image in the U.S. ended up as top aides to Malley, according to a Semafor report. 

‘The Inspector General’s report today includes new damning revelations about the cover-up, politicization, and systemic lack of accountability in the Biden-Harris Administration’s State Department.’ 

OIG found that a ‘lack of standard policies for political appointees and the lack of supervision of Special Envoy Malley led to significant confusion as to what work Mr. Malley was authorized to do following the suspension.’

The department also ‘failed to consistently notify employees who regularly interacted with Mr. Malley that he was no longer allowed to access classified information,’ according to the report. It did not report the allegations against Malley to OIG, as required by law. 

The Biden administration made Malley special envoy to Iran in April 2021. He reported directly to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and was granted a top secret security clearance. 

On April 20, 2023, the Director of the Department’s Office of Personnel Security and Suitability received a referral to suspend Malley’s clearance pending an investigation, and the next day the director signed off on the referral. Malley, however, was not notified until the following day, April 22. 

On April 22, the department also issued an information and facility access restriction (IFAR) for Malley. Days later, his access to facilities was restored, and he was allowed to continue working on unclassified matters. 

He continued working until June 29, 2023, when he was placed on leave without pay and told to cease all department work. He was told that without a clearance, he could not perform the duties of the job. 

Malley retains the title of special envoy to Iran to this day, even as his employment and clearance remain suspended. He will continue to hold the title until he resigns or his clearance is officially revoked. 

‘Instead of taking this seriously, the State Department and the White House have tried to sweep this under the rug and bury Mr. Malley’s egregious violations of our national security. These revelations are quite damning, but not surprising,’ House Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul and Senate Foreign Relations top Republican Jim Risch said in a joint statement. 

‘Congress remains in the dark on how Mr. Malley’s infractions impacted the conduct of the administration’s disastrous approach to Iran, or affected the safety of Americans.’