The Israeli Defense Forces is expected to conduct airstrikes against Lebanon late Sunday targeting financial institutions linked to the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

Fox News’ Trey Yingst in Israel reports the strikes will specifically target al-Qard al-Hassan ‘all over Lebanon.’ Al-Qard al-Hassan is a unit in Hezbollah to fund terrorist activities like paying operatives and buying arms. 

The registered nonprofit is sanctioned by both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, provides financial services and is also used by Lebanese civilians. 

The IDF issued evacuation orders for civilians close to these financial institutions. IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the strikes will be widespread, targeting not just financial centers in Beirut, but also other Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon. 

Fox News is told the goal is to strike at the heart of Hezbollah’s financial support for the conflict with Israel, which has been ongoing since October 2023, the month Hamas militants stormed into Israel, killing nearly 1,200 and taking hundreds more as hostages. 

A senior intelligence official indicated earlier Sunday that not all of Hezbollah’s money is being held in these financial institutions, but it’s expected to inflict significant damage on the group’s economic abilities. 

The official noted that there are hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians – mostly Shias – who use this banking system, and there are a number of branches in Beirut expected to be targeted. 

A year of escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah over the war in Gaza turned into all-out war last month, and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon early this month.

Israel’s announcement came a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called civilian casualties in Lebanon ‘far too high’ in the Israel-Hezbollah war, and urged Israel to scale back some strikes, especially in and around Beirut.

Iran supports the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, and the United States is investigating an unauthorized release of classified documents indicating that Israel was moving military assets into place for a military strike in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1, according to three U.S. officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Israel has an opportunity to have new leadership in the Gaza Strip, urging action following last week’s killing of Hamas leader and mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks, Yahya Sinwar. 

‘There’s a window here not only to end the fighting, but to replace Hamas forever,’ Graham said in an appearance on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’ ‘And the way you do that, is you have normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. With the death of Sinwar, the door is now open to not only find a way to get Israel to turn over Gaza and eventually Lebanon, but to have it replaced by an Arab coalition offering a better life to the Palestinians.’ 

‘I’ve never been more hopeful that normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel is possible,’ he added. ‘I’ve been working with the Biden administration over a year and a half. I think we’re very close.’ 

Graham, who has been working with the Biden administration to broker a deal for Israel and Saudi Arabia to establish diplomatic ties by the end of the year, also told NBC host Kristen Welker that he anticipated a counterattack by Israel against Iran soon but declined to supply a more specific timeline.

‘I don’t have any direct knowledge, but I know they’re serious about hitting back,’ Graham said, referencing Iran’s recent launching of nearly 200 missiles at Israel. ‘I think it will be soon, and I think it will be a hard hit. But again, the more you can diminish Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, better for the region. I think a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which is the key, is more possible than ever.’ 

Meanwhile, the U.S. is reportedly investigating an unauthorized leak of classified documents with U.S. intelligence regarding Israel’s planned strikes against Iran posted to Telegram last week. 

Iran supports Hamas and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which are both designated by the State Department as foreign terrorist organizations. The U.S. is urging Israel to press for a cease-fire in Gaza following last week’s killing of Sinwar. But neither Israel nor Hamas has shown interest in such a deal after months of negotiations sputtered to a halt in August, The Associated Press reported. 

Israel’s government said a drone targeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house on Saturday, with no casualties, as fighting with Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists showed no pause. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Vice President Kamala Harris has no plans to campaign in-person with President Biden in the final weeks before Election Day, according to reports.

Harris has attempted to distance herself from Biden’s presidency in recent weeks, and White House and campaign officials confirmed her lack of plans to appear with Biden, according to NBC News.

The White House and Harris campaign did not respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.

Biden plans to support Harris indirectly by stirring up his longtime supporters to back Harris, NBC reported.

Harris has spent weeks styling herself as a change candidate despite being a leader in the current administration.

Harris insists that a Harris presidency would not be ‘a continuation of the Biden presidency.’ Fox News’ Bret Baier pressed her to explain what differences there would be in an exclusive interview last week.

‘My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency, and, like every new president that comes in to office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences, and fresh and new ideas. I represent a new generation of leadership,’ Harris told him.

‘I, for example, am someone who has not spent the majority of my career in Washington, D.C. I invite ideas, whether it be from the Republicans who are supporting me, who were just on stage with me minutes ago, and the business sector, and others who can contribute to the decisions that I make,’ she added.

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump has argued that Harris will bring only more of the same economic and immigration policies that have made the Biden administration deeply unpopular.

The former president remains ahead in the polls on the economy and immigration.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., says the U.S. should assist Israel with a ‘maximum pressure’ campaign against Iran as tensions continue to rise in the Middle East.

Johnson made the comment during a Sunday morning appearance on CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ with host Jake Tapper. The speaker told Tapper that Iran is the ‘head of the snake,’ and fighting proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas will not get the job done.

‘We’re on a precipice, I think, Jake, of a new era of security and freedom for Israel. And I think we’re very close, I hope, I pray, to ending that conflict there. But we cannot equivocate. We can’t appease Iran,’ Johnson said.

‘Now is the time for a maximum pressure campaign against the head of the snake. It’s not Hezbollah and Hamas and the proxies that are ultimately the threat. It is Iran itself, and I think we need to recognize that reality right now,’ he added.

The comments come as Israel is expected to launch a retaliatory strike against Iran in response to the massive wave of missiles Tehran and its allies launched into Israel on Oct. 1.

Tapper asked Johnson whether there was any action Israel could take that would be too drastic a response.

‘It’s not my place to second-guess their strategy or to try to micromanage it,’ Johnson said. ‘I think that we do harm to the overall cause if that’s our position. And I think that’s what the Biden-Harris administration has tried to do at too many points along the way. They have withheld weapons systems, when Congress in a bipartisan manner duly enacted that these things would be supplied.’

Johnson went on to say that the tensions in the Middle East are a ‘good versus evil conflict,’ and that U.S. support must always remain with Israel.

Johnson’s appearance came as the U.S. is investigating the unauthorized release of classified documents relating to Israel’s plans for retaliation.

The documents, attributed to the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, note that Israel was still moving military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s blistering ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1. They were shareable within the ‘Five Eyes,’ which are the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

The documents were posted to the Telegram messaging app last week and first reported by CNN and Axios. The AP first reported Sunday about the U.S. investigation into the unauthorized release, citing three U.S. officials. The AP said a fourth U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, indicated that the documents appeared to be legitimate. 

Fox News’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.

Kamala Harris might not like Catholic charity dinners, but she knows how to throw a Hail Mary, and her latest, that Donald Trump is exhausted or senile is landing incomplete with a thud among voters.

It has been about a week now that Harris’ campaign, which basically everyone has finally admitted is badly losing steam, started claiming Trump is in mental decline, and it’s no accident that it coincided with the moment when Democrats started outright panicking over her chances.

During most of that week, I was in Virginia and North Carolina talking mostly to Democratic voters, and while many gave me reasons why they wouldn’t vote for Trump, not one suggested he was exhausted or senile. Not a single person.

Even with the lapdog leftist news media barking this lie alongside Harris, nobody is buying it. 

I’m sorry, an anonymously sourced Politico story saying Trump is ducking interviews because he is tired is not going to cut it when voters have seen Trump take questions over and over while Harris refuses to do any press conferences.

On Friday night, ABC, NBC, and CBS news all led with this thin gruel, while the New Republic cheered in a headline that ‘Trump’s alarming mental decline has finally become a big media story.’ No significant new reporting was offered, these outlets just echoed the desperate canard from Politico and the Harris camp.

Here’s a tip from behind the scenes in journalism: A big clue that a news outlet is misleading you is when, instead of covering the actual story, they cover that the story is being covered. ‘We don’t have any real evidence,’ these outlets are saying, ‘but all our journalist buddies are talking about it a lot!’

You know who is not talking about it at all? Voters. 

This is because voters are not stupid and they have seen with their own eyes that Trump has done more interviews, rallies, press conferences, gaggles, and impromptu appearances than Harris since the conventions.

Oh, and by the way, that was after being literally shot in the face, and standing, fist in the air, yelling ‘fight, fish, fight,: with blood streaming down his cheek. That doesn’t exactly scream, ‘tired, old man.’

A general rule of advertising that transcends politics is that it is very hard to make people care about something they don’t already care about, and this is why Harris’ attempt to manufacture deep concern about Trump’s mental fitness is failing so badly. 

Harris isn’t tapping into worries that already do exist here, such as January 6th, or abortion rights, or healthcare; those are things I hear Democrats talk about, rather, she and the media have launched a laughable top-down effort to make these voters think Trump is losing it. It’s a failing endeavor.

This past week, Gallup announced that for the third straight year, trust in the news media has declined. At this point, 70% of Americans do not trust the Fourth Estate. Is it any wonder, when they are engaging in this kind of nonsense?

To make matters worse for the pushers of this ignominious lie about Trump’s fitness, we all remember that just 6 months ago these were the same people, almost to a person, insisting to voters that President Joe Biden was ‘sharp as a tack,’ and ‘running circles around his Millennial staff.’

Do they really think we have all forgotten that? Were they lying then, or are they lying now? Or is lying in an effort to hurt Trump so natural to them that they don’t even know the difference?

It is now completely clear that Kamala Harris as a candidate brings absolutely nothing positive to the table. Her whole campaign has come down to ‘I’m not Donald Trump, and I’m not Joe Biden!’ 

Well, I’m not Donald Trump or Joe Biden, either. It doesn’t mean I should be president of the United States.

Lacking such a positive case, all the campaign has left is to attack Trump as unfit. It hasn’t worked in regard to his policies as he has erased the sugar-high, joy-induced lead Harris enjoyed two months ago, so that only leaves personal attacks.

This attack is failing badly; many things come to mind when one thinks of Donald Trump. Senile and exhausted are not among them, and no matter how many chattering class talking heads insist they should be, that isn’t going to change in the next 16 days.

Legendary Notre Dame football coach Frank Leahy was once asked if the Blessed Mother roots for the Fighting Irish. He said she roots for teams that can block and tackle. Harris can do neither, and it’s why this final, desperate heave of the pigskin is not going to work.

The Israel Defense Forces said that the war in Gaza is not over following the killing of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ top leader and the mastermind of the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attack, and will continue until the hostages taken amid that day’s massacre are returned.

IDF Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari released declassified footage showing Sinwar hours before the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, as well as his movements in Gaza as he fled over the past year. Hagari said 101 hostages remain held in Gaza after a year in captivity under ‘ruthless conditions.’ 

‘Killing Sinwar is the result of a year of operational and intelligence efforts to bring him and other Hamas leaders to justice. Sinwar has been eliminated. But our mission is not over,’ Hagari said in a video statement on Saturday. ‘We will not rest until we bring all our hostages home by any means possible. And we will continue to defend the people of Israel from all threats on all of our borders.’ 

Hours before the Oct. 7 attacks, during which Hamas terrorists murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis and took hundreds more as hostages into Gaza, Sinwar was captured on video alone hiding his family and equipment, including beds, pillows, food, water and a TV in an underground tunnel network, Hagari said. 

While Sinwar’s location was kept classified while he ordered the attacks from the underground tunnels, ‘this was a luxury that the people of Gaza did not have as Sinwar always prioritized himself, his money and the Hamas terrorists over the people of Gaza,’ Hagari said. ‘Each step was planned to maximize harm to Israeli and Gazan civilians and to minimize harm to himself and other terrorists.’

‘Throughout the war that Sinwar started, he continued to hide underneath the people of Gaza,’ Hagari said.

In February, Hagari said Israeli troops found Sinwar’s underground hideout in Khan Yunis that included money, food, beds, documents, a shower and a kitchen. IDF operations in Khan Yunis forced Sinwar to flee to Rafah last month, Hagari said. 

Sinwar’s DNA was recovered on a piece of tissue ‘a few hundred meters’ from a tunnel where six Israeli hostages were executed in Rafah before Sinwar fled again, Hagari said. 

‘When Sinwar was running for his life and went above the ground, this was the first and last time that he encountered Israeli soldiers in combat,’ Hagari said. ‘Sinwar was eliminated by the IDF in Rafah last Wednesday. I want to emphasize it again: This was the first and last time he encountered Israeli soldiers, and he was eliminated. There were no hostages with Sinwar when he was eliminated.’ 

Before she became her party’s nominee for president, Kamala Harris had not made a substantial, discernable positive public impact during her nearly four years in the White House. She largely operated under the radar and fell short regarding some of her most high-profile assignments. 

She had not universally distinguished herself as a leader. She had not won over swaths of new fans. She had not fully earned her place as next in line. She was known more in Washington circles for her rocky relationships with her staff members and her sagging approval ratings than for anything she had actually accomplished.

To be sure, through the first few years of the Biden-Harris administration, the vice president received praise for assuming an outsize role in the fights for abortion and voting rights, and for building solid relationships with important foreign allies. Although mocked for her word salads and piercing guffaws, she did not overtly undercut the administration’s agenda. For those who saw her up close, she was impressive but not iconic, charismatic but not yet a superstar.

And on July 21, when Joe Biden stepped aside and Harris stepped in, she was good enough. Democrats and Never Trumpers had said it time and again. They just wanted someone healthy. Someone normal. Someone sane. Someone different. Someone not Biden, someone not Trump. Someone else.

I would vote for any functioning politician over Biden and Trump.

I would vote for that squirrel in that tree over Trump.

There’s no such thing as a perfect candidate.

The country needs to turn the page on tired, wacky, old men.

Harris is tolerable.

Maybe Harris will surprise us.

And surprise them she did.

On that sticky summer Sunday afternoon when Biden announced his decision to drop out of the presidential race and endorsed his number two to be the Democratic nominee for president, no one, not even Harris herself, knew what was going to happen.

A collective derecho-sized sigh of relief rose up from Democrats coast to coast, north to south, and every Blue enclave in between. 

President Biden’s disastrous June debate performance had exposed the extent of his decline and put a glaring and unequivocal spotlight on his limitations as a candidate and as a prospective second-term president. Democratic voters and staunch party loyalists, Trump detractors, Trump loathers, and Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers had all feared the worst: They were stuck with an acuity-compromised octogenarian who could not deliver the votes and would surely lose the election. And then, their unthinkable, impossible nightmare would occur—Donald Trump would return to the White House.

After several weeks of party pressure and serpentine political machinations the likes of which have rarely been seen in this country, Biden agreed to withdraw his reelection bid. Bypassing a Democratic Party nomination fight, he handed the torch to Harris. In a statement, Biden asserted that bringing in Harris as his vice president was ‘the best decision I’ve made,’ and offered ‘my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year.’

‘Democrats,’ he added, ‘it’s time to come together and beat Trump.’

This vigorous affirmation was standard but phony. Biden and his team, even members of the vice president’s office, had long thought Harris was not yet prepared to be president, and would be a weak candidate against Trump, maybe a doomed one. Some White House staff clung to the belief that Biden, with all his visible infirmity, remained the less risky option. Regarding their long-held view of Harris, they were as certain as they were worried.

Once Harris accepted the mantle from Biden, she seemingly became a political supernova overnight. She expanded, she leaned in, she improved. She showed charm and grit, confidence and swagger, grace and guts. She was, for the imperatives of the moment, great.

Democrats, once despondent over candidate Biden, now cheered as loudly as they had exhaled. The Dominant Media was euphoric—a fantastic story to cover, a Democratic heroine to bolster. The newspaper headlines and cable pontification surged beyond mere hagiography and well into farce. The blinders were firmly in place. The buzz words of summer were vibe shift and joy, and, of course, brat. 

Harris chose a running mate lickety-split, selecting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after a drastically abbreviated vetting process, and pulled off a strong convention in Chicago, which managed to be both dignified and buoyant. Harris was in command. Her polls were competitive, her fundraising boffo.

But vibes can’t sustain a presidential campaign, and supernovas, no matter how luminous and intense the explosion, fade within a few weeks. When the glow dissipated, voters were left with the same Kamala Harris they had before, the same Kamala Harris that always had been, the one about whom there were substantial doubts in her own camp. 

That Kamala Harris had no clear theory of the case for winning the race or governing, nor tested presidential-level skills. Reality set in. She began to stall.

By Labor Day, the brat summer had largely evaporated. The mood shift, it turned out, was not a national phenomenon at all, but rather a instinctive and manic reaction from the Democratic base.

By Labor Day, the brat summer had largely evaporated. The mood shift, it turned out, was not a national phenomenon at all, but rather a instinctive and manic reaction from the Democratic base.

Independents, double haters, and undecided voters, meanwhile, had taken a pause and paid attention, waiting to learn more about Harris’ positions and policy plans. But Harris didn’t set forth a rationale for her presidency, beyond blocking a second Trump term. By Labor Day, Harris had not challenged herself by sitting for a tough interview, nor offered consistent straight answers about her intentions once in office, nor reached out to Red America. She had not risked the customary ‘What my party has gotten wrong’ concession on anything, eschewing a way to show boldness and political self-awareness which every elected president since Bill Clinton had made a core part of their pitch.

Harris supporters enjoyed a fresh burst of adrenaline on Sept. 9 when Harris and Trump faced off in the presidential debate. Harris was performatively strong, but the debate ironically only highlighted her fundamental problem. She looked and sounded good, appeared relaxed and unflinching, and brilliantly manipulated Trump’s ego, but in front of a huge audience of engaged citizens, she neglected to hammer any hard facts or clarify her own agenda. It was a chillingly short-sighted example of style over substance, and an egregious wasted opportunity.

It was time for Harris to stop coasting on vibes and parables and start doing the work.

But could she?

Her professional history indicated that the arduous task of crafting a message and headlining a full-blown campaign might be an uphill climb. Biden and many White House operatives still feared Harris could not beat Trump, and their failed efforts to prepare her both for the presidency and the race remained still fresh in their minds.

Even those with short memories know that Harris had not in the past shown she was adept at assembling the basic building blocks of a viable national candidacy. During her extensive and prominent career in California, Harris made as many foes as friends, with a significant number of local Democrats, both political operatives and regular citizens, declining to support her enthusiastically or, in some cases, under any circumstances.  

Nor had Harris been a particularly distinguished or popular member of the Senate, unable to impress many colleagues on either side of the aisle. Indeed, some of her biggest detractors to date have been fellow senators who worked with her in the Capitol, although to be fair, she barely had time to establish herself in the position before moving out and up to the vice presidency. 

The presidential bid she launched in January 2019 ended before the year was up; she failed to convey a winning message or gain any traction, and she ran out of money before a single ballot was cast.  Postmortems on her campaign emphasized her apparent lack of decisiveness, authenticity, direction, and guiding principles.

The various criticisms that have threaded throughout Harris’ professional rise are intertwined with the weak filaments of her current campaign. For most of the fall, it has been difficult for her to drive a message. She has struggled to produce a winning soundbite from an interview or rally. Despite a freshly honed oratorical style, Harris has been too vague and cautious in her rhetoric to spark a crystallizing moment, a revelation of the soul. Her travel schedule for almost the entirety of the campaign has been curiously light, with few rallies, no coast-to-coast blitzes, and a lack of interconnection within her organization, the calendar and the polls.

The feeling remains strong, even among some Democrats who desperately want her to win, that the Harris who was on offer before her ascendancy to the nomination is the one too often on display now.  These Democrats see someone who is living in the moment rather than rising to the occasion.

If Harris loses on Nov. 5, it should be no surprise to anyone who has watched her political path these past several decades. The signs were all there. 

However, if Harris triumphs, sending Donald Trump once and for all into political retirement, at this point, it will be something somewhat short of a shock.

With less than three weeks to go, Harris is demonstrating new signs of life, hitting her stride and having more fun. Her latest anti-Trump tagline—unhinged, unstable, and unchecked—seems to have some resonance. She is emitting refreshing flashes of authenticity, as she pivots from something in which her heart seems divided (shredding her previously held liberal positions) to something she relishes (cheeky denunciations of Trump’s fitness for office).

Democrats are fired up, and the country is primed for a reset.  Harris has millions of supporters who are champing to vote for her, and not merely because they dislike Trump, or want to cast a ballot for a woman, or are true-blue Democrats. These citizens are voting for Harris herself now, because they have an appreciation for her accomplishments. Harris’ resume has always been solid and hard-earned—one must demonstrate true skill, stamina, and determination to become a United States senator and vice president. Despite the odd confluence of events that presented her with the Democratic nomination, Harris is now holding her own, in it to be sure, and with the potential to win it.

Even as the country hurtles towards Election Day, Harris still has time to meld her summer vibes with the steely gladiator focus that was on display this past week. Going up against Trump, one of the most formidable, most original, most agile campaigners of the modern era, is no simple feat. Among every other variable at issue in presidential campaigns, candidate quality matters a lot, perhaps most of all.

And no one ever said that winning the White House would be easy, even for a candidate – especially for a candidate, perhaps – who was given her party’s nomination without a fight.